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CDFXRIGHT DEPOSIT 




WHITE- BREASTED NUTHATCH, Upper Figures, Male and Female 
RED -BREASTED NUTHATCH, Lower Figures, Male and Female 

Order— Passeres Family— Si ttid/E 

Genus— Sitta Species— Carolinensis and Canadensis 

National Association of Audubon Societies 



Our Dooryard Friends 



BY 



SARA V. PRUESER 




THIRD EDITION 



Published by 

Fred High 

Chicago, Illinois 
1918 






TO THE 

Boys' Nature Club of Shawnee Glen 

This Book is Dedicated in Grateful and Loving 
Homage by the Author 



MAY 23 1918 .£ 



)CI.A497435 



^ 



INTRODUCTION 

One who long has lived the intensive life of cities 
can know little about birds. Indeed, we city folk sel- 
dom hear birds, or hear them mentioned, unless it be 
when we are told that the English sparrows have driv- 
en all the other birds out, This perhaps is as likely 
to be as incorrect as most general statements ; per- 
haps it is we who have driven out all the other birds, 
if they have been driven out, or perhaps it is but our 
way of excusing ourselves for our astounding ignor- 
ance about all of the manifestations of life about us. 
We have dull vision, and grope our way stupidly and 
purblindly among mysteries and beauties we have not 
the wit to recognize and enjoy. About all we know of 
English sparrows is that they are forever quarreling 
and scuffling in the streets, and we ourselves in that 
respect are not much beyond the development they 
have attained. 

I can tell a robin or a bluejay, but I should be un- 
able to identify many other members of the bird fam- 
ily. I do know a meadow lark when I see one, be- 
cause on the golf links in early summer these blithe 
birds are constantly springing up from one's feet and 
flying low across the downs with a note of music that 
might have been swept from the strings of a harp, 
and one is now and then begging the caddies to respect 



the nests they so recklessly build in the open fields. 
And there comes back, too, a recollection of long years 
since, when a flash of red through the green woods was 
identified for me as a scarlet tanager. Only the other 
day I had the amazing adventure of beholding an owl 
in a tree ; we saw it from the veranda of the Country 
Club ; and down on Lake Erie, in the winter, I have 
seen bedraggled eagles sitting cold and disconsolate in 
the tops of tall trees, waiting for the fishermen to 
haul their, nets from the ice, and share with them the 
spoil. 

But I am not a naturalist, and cannot undertake to 
write any sort of critical appreciation of a book that 
is so explicit about birds as the manuscript of "Our 
Dooryard Friends" proves to be, and so I am unable to 
speak in any wise of the scientific value of those ob- 
servations which Miss Prueser has made among the 
birds. If I fail to share all of her raptures about 
nature, perhaps it is because I have been so exclusive- 
ly occupied with the expressions of man, about whom 
it becomes more and more difficult to have any sort 
of rapture, but I can own to a joy in reading the sim- 
ple and sincere sketches which Miss Prueser has gath- 
ered to make this little book. And in reading them I 
have not been reproached for my lack of knowledge of 
birds, I have been reproached by my own ignorance 
of my own land. I was assured, ever since my teach- 
ers tried to drum it into my head when I was a little 
boy, that the valley of the Maumee River was rich 
in historical interest, but I never knew that there was 



so much of interest going on in it as Miss Prueser has 
discovered within a few yards of her own door. And 
so I have read her pages with interest, and I have had 
my joy in that little world she creates and in which 
she seems to move, a little world so curiously remote 
from the work-a-day world of men with all its striv- 
ing and its savagery, that one might wish that she had 
been more discursive and more explicit about it. She 
writes of it in a plain and straightforward manner, and 
tells us quite simply, almost naively, all the wonder- 
ful things she beholds in it; it becomes a world in 
which the human interest is entirely subordinated, 
when it exists at all, to the manifold interests of the 
inhabitants of that world whose affairs are doubtless 
quite as important as our own. 

BRAND WHITLOCK. 
Toledo, Ohio. 



PROCLAMATION 

It is related that in the early days of Illinois history it 
was the custom of the leading lawyers to accompany on 
horseback the judge as he "rode the circuit" journeying 
from town to town to hold court. On one of these 
journeys it zvas observed that one of the best known and 
ablest lawyers of the party had fallen behind and had 
become separated from his distinguished associates. In- 
quiry developed the fact that this great lawyer and states- 
man, noticing as he passed along the country road that a 
robin's nest had fallen to the ground, bringing wreck and 
ruin to a tiny home, and vast trouble to a little bird- 
mother, had dismounted from his horse, gathered up the 
helpless young birds, placed them in the nest and climbed 
up into the tree to place this little house with its tender 
inmates on a more secure foundation out of harm's way. 
This kindly, humane act performed, the big-hearted 
lawyer mounted his horse and rode on. Abraham, Lincoln 
could thus find time to save suffering and administer to 
the wants of a poor little bird-family ; he became the 
liberator of a race and the savior of his country. Who 
shall say that this thoughtful care for the grief -stricken 
bird-mother and her helpless brood was not a forerunner 
of that sympathy, devotion and tenderness which have 
endeared Lincoln to the world ? If he as a boy had robbed 
birds' nests and taken delight in inflicting pain and suffer- 
ing on the innocent and defenseless, it is safe to say that 



as a man he would not have achieved the high place he 
enjoys in the nation's affections. 

Let our boys and girls be taught that it is weak and 
coivardly to inflict suffering upon birds and dumb animals. 
Let us by example teach them that it is manly and woman- 
ly to -protect the helpless and to love the goody the true 
and the beautiful. The conservation of bird life and the 
encouragement of tree planting is more than mere senti- 
ment — it is fast becoming an economic problem of nation- 
wide importance. The unfortunate decimation of bird 
life has brought a myriad of insect pests which threaten 
the very life of farm crops and orchards. 

It is fitting that in the morning of a new century and 
a higher civilization the hand of man should guide nature 
in the restoration of a portion of the primeval forest and 
the protection of the birds that sing among the branches. 

In compliance with authority vested in me by law, I 
therefore designate April pth, as Arbor and Bird Day, 
and recommend that it be appropriately observed by the 
common schools, higher institutions of learning, civic 
organizations and citizens generally, to the end that the 
utility and beauty of tree and bird and bud and bloom and 
song may be more fully understood and appreciated and 
that the forest foliage may protect the home, adorn the 
landscape and clothe again the rugged slope of the ever- 
lasting hills. Frank B. Willis. 

Executive Department, 

Office of the Governor, 

February ij, 1915. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 15 

Tree Sparrows — New Year's Day 17 

The Cheerful Chickadees 20 

The Tufted Titmouse 23 

My White-breasted Nuthatch 26 

The Purple Finch 29 

The Woodpecker Family (Picidae) 31 

a — The Hairy Woodpecker 36 

b — Red-headed Woodpecker 37 

c — The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 38 

d — The Flicker or Golden-winged Woodpecker 39 

Juncos or Snowbirds 42 

The Waxwing 45 

The Brown Creeper 48 

The Cardinal 50 

Meadowlarks 55 

Redpolls 60 

Our Bobwhites 63 

With The Kinglets 68 

Blue Jays 73 

Prairie Horned Larks 78 

Goldfinches 81 

Birds in a December Woodland 85 

Other Winter Residents 89 

The Mourning Doves 94 



Brown Thrashers in Hawthorns 97 

The Song of the Whippoorwill 102 

Out-of-Doors, May 2nd 108 

The Birds' May Festival 115 

Phoebes 121 

With the Warblers 126 

A Morning Roll Call, June 21st 132 

Vespers 135 

Gnatcatchers 141 

Where Some Birds Build Their Nests 144 

Taking the Bird Census 152 

Visitors to the Old Cottonwood 157 

Autumn's Last Contribution , 166 

A Word About Museums and Parks. ., 170 

Here and There 178 

From the Porch Swing 182 

May 24th 183 

June 22nd— Morning 184 

June 22nd — Evening 184 

August 29th 185 

When the Ice Is on the Trees 188 

The Practical Side of Bird Life 193 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

White Breasted Nuthatch Frontispiece. 

Downy And Hairy Woodpeckers *30 

The Woodland Had Been Transformed Into An Icy Fairy- 
land 33 

Where The Sandpiper Liked To Play 34 

A Bird's Paradise Along The Maumee 34 

Blue Jay Sitting On The Finger Of A Friend 51 

A Yellow Warbler's Nest 52 

A Catbird's Nest 69 

A Blue Jay Ready To Feed The Young In The Cage 70 

A Young Mourning Dove Ready To Leave The Nest 70 

A Killdeer's Nest 103 

A Song Sparrow's Nest 103 

A Bank Swallow's Nest 103 

A Robin's Nest 104 

A Chipping Sparrow's Nest 104 

A Bank Swallow's Nest In A Stone Culvert '. 104 

The President Of A Junior Audubon Society *120 

House Wren's Nest In A Clothes Pin Bag *121 

Four Young Thrashers (Permission Of Doubleday, Page 

& Co.) . 137 

A Brown Thrasher's Nest In A Hawthorn 137 

A Me adowl ark's Nest 137 

Young Thrashers (Nest In Brush Heap) 138 

The Grassy Nest Of A Field Sparrow 138 

A Young Field Sparrow ., 138 

Purple Martin House 169 

A Thrasher's Retreat — Hawthorn Thicket 171 

Young Meadowlark In Hiding. 171 

A Dark Tunnel To A Bank Swallow's Nest 172 

Four Young Phoebes Eleven Days Old 172 

Phoebe's Nest In Vacant House 172 

Two Young Barn Swallows 172 

Again The W t oodland Had Been Transformed Into A Crys- 
tal World *188 

The Willows Bowed, Bent and Broken *188 

Two Active Members Of The Liberty Bell Bird Club *189 

A Food Shelter In Operation *189 

Martin House Owned By Wm. Rockefeller *196 

Mrs. Potter Palmer's Martin House *196 

Evolution Of The Martin House *197 



PEN SKETCHES 

PAGE 

Black Capped Chickadee 16 

Field Sparrow 19 

Flicker 41 

House Wren ,. . . 44 

The Meadow Lark ,. 59 

Barn Swallow 67 

Blue Jay 77 

Bluebird . . . 80 

Brown Thrasher 101 

Phoebe 125 

Bobolink 131 

Song Sparrow 140 

Baltimore Oriole : 151 

Robin , 156 

Yellow-billed Cuckoo 166 

Red- winged Blackbird 187 

Barn Owl 192 



- 



IT'S THE STATE'S DUTY. 



"I feel that the protection of song 
and insectivorous birds is a duty which 
the state owes to itself. The surest 
way to establish this protection is to 
inculcate in the minds of our school 
children such love for birds and such 
an interest in their habits as to make 
all desire for the destruction of either 
the birds or their eggs impossible, 
thereby insuring the preservation of 
crops which are a prey to insect pests." 

Hon. Geo. W. P. Hunt, Governor of 
Arizona. 



PREFACE 

Little less than a century ago, Henry Rix bought a 
tract of land for which he paid the government $1.25 
per acre. It is on this old tract, a part of the original 
Northwest Territory, from which nearly all the ob- 
servations, reported in this volume, have been made. 

In writing these sketches, my purpose has been to 
interest both young and old in the life and beauty of 
the out-of-doors. And in endeavoring to do this, no 
effort has been made to contribute anything to science 
but I have merely tried to tell the truth as I saw it. 
If others in their observations of out-door life should 
verify these truths the writer's happiness will be all 
the greater. 

I wish to express my thanks to The School Century, 
Comstock Publishing Co., and to Doubleday, Page and 
Co., for permission to reprint a few of the sketches 
that have appeared in their journals. To Homer H. 
Helmick and other friends, I am indebted for helpful 
suggestions and kindly citicism, and to Claud Prueser 
Helmick for his assistance in photography. 

SARA V. PRUESER. 
January, 1915. 
Defiance, Ohio. 




BLACK CAPPED CHICKADEE 



Did you ever see the little Chickadee, in winter 
or summer, lifting the myriads of scale pests from 
the bark crevices of your trees? 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 






COPYRIGHTED 1916. BY SARA V. PRUESER 

SECOND EDITION COPYRIGHTED 

OCTOBER, 1917. 



OUR DOOR YARD FRIENDS 17 

TREE SPARROWS— NEW YEAR'S DAY. 

Into the hawthorn thicket had flown a flock of small 
birds, sparrow-like in appearance. Their sweet, clink- 
ing notes I had heard before ; their weak, chipping 
calls were not new to me. Then why should I be in 
doubt as to their identity? It was the sweet ripple of 
song that followed, much like the note of the goldfinch 
but not as loud or as musical, that caused me to hesi- 
tate in naming the singer. What a charming song it 
was ! — a soft ripple of merry tinkling notes. The 
woods were silent, except for the choruses sung by 
these little creatures, that flew from one clump of rose 
bushes to another, then into the thickets again. How 
happy I was to hear this outburst of song on this mild 
New Year's Day. The day was ideal — warm, bright, 
sunny. No wonder they favored me with their March 
love songs in January. 

During the half-hour's enjoyment of their musical 
performance, I took some notice of their looks. Quiet- 
ly creeping up to within two yards of one of them, 
I saw that the top of his head was a rich rufous, bor- 
dered by a dull gray, that his back was striped with 
black, buff and rufous ; that his w r ing coverts were 
tipped with white, and that in the center of his grayish 
white breast was a small dark spot. The rufous on 
his head made me think of the chipping sparrow or 
hairbird ; some notes in his song reminded me of the 
wild canary's and of the junco's song. I was quite 
sure that he must be a tree sparrow or our winter 



18 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

chippy, as some please to call him. The description 
in the bird book confirmed my conviction. 

Now that I was sure of their identity, I was in- 
tensely interested to see what they might do and 
what traits of character they might exhibit. Being 
clad in sparrow-colored clothes myself, made me less 
conspicuous, so I could get within a few feet of them 
as they settled down in the grassy places in the woods 
to feed upon the weed seeds. How much in color 
were they like the dried leaves, and tanned and grayed 
grasses ! Often I would lose sight of them as they 
flew ahead to new feeding grounds, for their forest- 
colored backs were so like the colors of the ground 
and leaves that it was difficult to place them. In their 
flight they seemed like a lot of loose leaves blown by 
a strong wind from one brush pile to another. 

When they reached the edge of the woodland, they 
flew into a number of low hawthorn bushes and for 
some minutes not a sound escaped them. Tucking 
their little heads under their wings, they sat motion- 
less, indulging in little naps and taking their sun baths 
at the same time. Wise little creatures, — excellent 
economizers of time ! 

In most parts of Ohio and other central states the 
tree sparrows are common winter residents but, like 
many of the other birds, their number is rapidly de- 
creasing. This decrease is likely due to a lack of 
food and to the disappearance of bushy undergrowths 
from our fields and the destruction of our forests. If 
the former be the chief cause, it can be, in a measure, 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 



19 



overcome by feeding them through the winter months, 
when food is scarce. Tree sparrows are very fond of 
all kinds of grass and weed seeds. Hemp, rag and 
knotweed seeds are eagerly sought as well as those of 
the ash and ironwood trees., Fine cracked corn is also 
relished. Regular feeding places, on the outside limit 
of English sparrow territory, can be established. Some 
men on our farms are taking quite as much pride in 
caring for the wild birds in winter as they do in look- 
ing after their domestic birds. 




FIELD SPARROW 



20 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

THE CHEERFUL CHICKADEES. 

What bird can bring more cheer when the snow 
lies piled in great drifts about your door, than the 
chickadee? From the woods and over the meadows 
they come, visiting in the orchard long enough to glean 
from the bare boughs the insect food hidden in the 
bark. 

How thankful one is for their cheering notes, 
"Chicka-dee, chicka-dee, de, de!" What wild wood- 
land notes they introduce into the noise and clatter of 
domesticity ! Sometimes, two long notes, sweet and 
plaintive emanate from one of them. Then follows a 
chorus of "chick-a-dee" and "da, da, da." 

In mid-winter when food becomes scarce, they are 
welcome guests at your kitchen door, picking up any 
bits that may have escaped the refuse can. Often 
some generous-hearted person invites them to some- 
thing better and spreads a feast for them upon the 
hard-crusted snow in his farmyard. How they do 
enjoy the meal of good things — mere left-overs from 
the farmer's larder and grain house — dry crumbs of 
rye and corn bread, seeds, scraps of meat, and broken 
nut kernels. 

During one cold February, a flock of chickadees 
visited the south porch to the kitchen every week of 
the month. How delighted I was to see them drop 
down from the pear tree to the ground, feeding on the 
crumbs from the breakast table. And never were they 
ungrateful, they sang their "thanks," over and over 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 21 

again. One who has never heard the merry notes of 
the chickadee can not realize what it means to have 
such a jocund company so near. 

Sometimes, a pair of tufted titmice were with them. 
What a spirited concert they gave : "Chickadee, dee, 
dee, peto, tseep, peto, wheweet, chicka-dee, da, da, da," 
and so on with the various parts repeated. You wanted 
to clap your hands for very joy. Such sweet, raptur- 
ous, inspiring music ! 

The chickadees are with us the year round, and no 
month passes but that they pay a number of visits 
to the orchards. To know how much better the fruit 
trees fare after each visit, one needs only to watch 
them at work on the branches. Every crack and crev- 
ice is probed for moth eggs, grubs, larvae, nor is he 
satisfied with a dozen insect eggs at a meal. Where 
moth life is abundant, he has been known to eat as 
many as 5,000 eggs in one day. If one's hospitality 
extends itself on the cold winter days to pinning an 
occasional bone in a fruit tree, or to scattering seeds 
and cracked nuts on the snow-covered ground, the 
chickadees will come to your orchards, and search for 
the destructive insect life. 

Often have I visited the woods and thickets on a 
cold day in winter and found the woods silent. When 
all at once, as if by magic, a troupe of chickadees made 
the bushes ring. A few mouthfuls, then a song. Eat, 
sing, and be merry, seemed to be their philosophy of 
right living. From bush to bush, they flitted, skipping 
among the gray twigs, then flying to the trees, one of 



22 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

them dangling head downward, when he wished to 
excavate an oak gall at the end of a twig too light to 
bear his weight. 

In the spring the flocks break up and the birds pair 
off and go nest hunting. In old dead trees and stumps 
they build their nests. If a woodpecker or a nuthatch 
has done the excavating, so much the better, for it 
saves them the labor. If they do not find holes 
already made, they set to work excavating some tree, 
usually twelve or fifteen feet from the ground. In 
this hole, they place a well made nest of fine mosses, 
feathers, hair, and plant down. From five to eight 
small white eggs spotted with brown, chiefly at the 
larger end, are laid in the snug cradle. When eight 
eggs are laid and all of them hatch, the parent birds 
have quite a family to care for. 

The loose flocks one sees in early autumn are often 
the individual families, traveling about as one com- 
pany, distributing good cheer to the passers-by. Nor 
is this good cheer club spasmodic in its efforts of dis- 
pensing happiness. Their attitude is always kindly. 
Wherever they are, whatever the day — be it ever so 
dismal, they are singing gaily. Free concerts certainly 
deserve patronage. So when the hens, are cackling in 
your yard on a cold winter day because they have had 
some good hot mash, do not forget to entertain the 
cheerful chickadees with a good free lunch of suet 
cakes and nutty food. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 23 

THE TUFTED TITMOUSE. 

Each year I am appreciating more and more the in- 
valuable pleasures of farm life. It is something to 
have a farm in such close proximity to the woods that 
the birds do not discriminate between the trees of 
the woods and those of the dooryard. 

Often when at work in the yard or garden, I have 
had the greatest moments of my life because of some 
new bird visitor pouring out his very soul to me in a 
song vibrating with love and life. Then, I can think 
of no greater pleasure than to have the same family 
of birds visit me each month of the year, like good old 
friends who do not wait for invitations. The tufted 
titmice are of this class. 

On such familiar terms are we that rarely do they 
miss an opportunity of coming each month of the 
year. Through the winter months when bird visitors 
are few, they are frequent callers. Their piping 
whistled notes bring a wintry charm to the bare trees 
of the dooryard, making them seem quite alive. 

To really know the titmice, one must live pretty 
close to them in the spring months. Vividly do I 
remember how a number of them entertained me one 
morning in June. 

From the garden, near the cherry and cedar trees, 
there came a merry chorus of exquisite music. The 
titmice had come ; not only one of them, but a whole 
family. And such music! Had they come to help 
fill my cup of joy which was now near overflowing? 



24 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

I had heard the crested tits many times before, but 
never had I heard the song that they sang that June 
morning. I wished for some sort of plate on which 
to make a record of it. The inward ear has it but an 
attempt to put it in letters and words robs it of its 
musical charm. There were two long notes, clear and 
flute-like, then a tinkling little warble ; a warble not as 
joyous and voluble as the vireo's nor as strong as the 
orchard oriole's. After this distinctive song, they sang 
the characteristic and monotonous "peto, peto," fol- 
lowed by the "day, day, de," in mocking response to 
the chickadees. Dawson in "Birds of Ohio," says : 
"The cheery, cheery call of the titmouse is one of the 
most familiar sounds of the woods and village groves. 
More loud and clear is the Teter, Peter/ or 'peto, 
peto/ note of springtime. As a distinct modification 
of the first named note there is a rare musical 'chooy, 
chooy/ which has in it much of the flute-like character 
of the wren's song." The wrens were singing but I 
could not detect any notes of semblance in their song 
to the sweet delicate warble of the titmouse. 

One of the singers remained some time in the cherry 
tree after the others had flown away. Once he was 
less than two yards from my hand, for I had concealed 
myself under the low spreading branches of the cedar, 
whose limbs interlocked with those of the cherry tree, 
making an effectual screen. Once he ate the pulp of 
the cherry from the pit, at another time he duplicated 
the performance of the red-headed woodpecker swing- 
ing himself trapeze-like to a twig and pulling the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 25 

cherry from the stem, carrying it to the cedar, where 
he held it on the limb with his foot, deliberately eating 
his dessert. After the cherries were eaten, he sang 
his "thanks" not once, but over and over again. Some- 
times but a few measures were sung, then the whole 
repertoire. I could have thrown bouquets at him in 
appreciation of this delectable entertainment. 

I noticed that several of the titmice in this flock 
had but the slightest tinge of rufous or rustiness in 
their plumage. These were the young birds which do 
not have on their full uniform till later in the season. 
The prevailing color of the adult titmouse is gray, 
the weathered gray of pine boards. The forehead is a 
dusky black and the under parts an ashy white. He 
can always be easily identified by his conspicuous 
bluish gray crest. 

Here in latitude forty-one the tufted titmice are fre- 
quent visitors to the orchards both in winter and in 
summer nearly always traveling with chickadees. 
Often on a cold day in January, a flock of titmice and 
chickadees spend a good part of the morning in the 
pear and apple trees, going carefully over the branches 
in search of insect food. I am glad to have the tufted 
titmice come to our garden and orchard for they are 
such good insect hunters ; more than sixty per cent of 
their food consists of animal matter. From apple and 
pear trees, the titmouse takes the eggs of the tent 
caterpillar (chisiocampa americana). Then, too, he 
comes for the eggs of plant lice, and for the larvae, 
chrysalis, and eggs of the moths. 



26 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

MY WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH. 

Up and down the elm he clambers — this little nut- 
hatch of mine. I call him mine for no one else claims 
him. Somehow he is always without a mate. Per- 
haps she has died or deserted him, or as it does some- 
times happen, she may have divorced him. But what- 
ever the cause, or the reason, he comes alone in his 
visits to the yard and orchard ; so I have adopted him 
into my family. And what a faithful member of it he 
is. No matter what the day or the season, he never 
fails to visit me on successive days before retiring to 
the woods. 

Quite unlike many of us he wears the same costume 
throughout the year, not so much as changing the 
color of his coat, although it seems to be a little thick- 
er and closer fitting through the winter months. A 
white vest, a black cap, a blue-gray coat bordered and 
trimmed in white and black, is the costume he wears 
— his business clothes — his dress suit. 

Like an old experienced hunter, the nuthatch is very 
methodical and deliberate in his movements. He 
knows where he wants to go and what he wants to do. 
He is so much of an athlete that he never fails to en- 
tertain and interest you. Down the tree trunk he goes, 
head first, then reversing the procedure ascends by 
describing spiral curves until he reaches the top. Often 
each big branch of the tree is circumscribed in the 
same manner, but always does he keep a sharp lookout 
for a nice mess of eggs that may lie half concealed 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 27 

behind a loose bit of bark, or for a good fat grub nicely- 
stowed away in the wood, a rich morsel for the nut- 
hatch. If in one tree he finds little that tempts his 
appetite, he goes to another where his maneuvers in 
search of food are repeated. 

The way in which the nuthatch drops from one part 
of the tree to another is always more or less of a 
curiosity to me. He lets go and simply drops like a 
pushed off piece of bark to the branch below. Never 
does he lose his balance or land on his head, as one of 
us might do should we undertake such a trapeze-like 
performance. His flight from tree to tree is done in 
just such a confident, straightforward manner; the 
short flights are sure to be straight and direct, the 
long ones undulated in gentle curving dips. Seldom 
does he alight on the ground, usually planting himself 
against the tree's bole or branch. Then he begins his 
tedious process of excavation, carefully examining 
each crack and crevice in search of insect food. We 
do not find him a respecter of trees for he seems just 
as fond of the moth eggs and larvae in the forest trees 
as he is of the codling moth in the apple and the cur- 
culios in the plum and pear trees. One day he con- 
fines his food-hunting rambles to the oaks, elms, and 
maples, another day he is in the orchard clearing up 
the old fruit trees. 

My nuthatch does not sing like the cardinal and 
goldfinch, but his chatting call notes are welcome 
sounds to my listening ears. His cheering "yank, 
yank" has in it the music of blest contentment and 



23 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

good will. Sometimes on a dark December day, when 
not another bird will be in sight, he will come to the 
elm in the yard, shambling up and down its trunk, 
talking mechanically. What a boon it is to have him 
so near; to hear his voice, to see him at work. Little 
does he dream that his presence makes joyous the hour 
to the guest within. On another day when February 
snows and ice make food hard to get, he spends much 
time in the trees in the dooryard, going over the old 
tramping grounds and "yanking" his thanks for the 
fresh supply of cartilage and suet. 

No attempt was made to domesticate this nuthatch 
but from the first he seemed more docile and confident 
than any other member of his family. Little interrup- 
tions never seemed to disturb him, for he plodded 
along mechanically calling, "yank, yank" as if that 
were his present duty, and "to occupy until He come." 
I often wonder just how much joy or pain, pathos or 
humor there is in that monotonous "yank." Just what 
emotion he wishes to express by it, I am unable to tell. 
It may be a hunger call, a love note, a signal for 
alarm, it is quite the same "yank." Why he thus sings 
and talks to himself is another bird problem with 
which the nature lover may concern himself. 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 29 

THE PURPLE PINCH. 

The name of this bird is very misleading for he has 
no purple in his plumage. Instead, his head, breast, and 
rump is a dull rosy red, as though he had taken a dust 
bath near a brick or tile mill ; his back is brownish ; and 
lower breast, white streaked with brown. His mate 
and the young birds are less attractive, very much like 
sparrows in appearance. Were it not for the thin tuft 
of feathers in the forehead, the forked tail, and white 
streak above the eye, it would be difficult to distinguish 
her from the sparrow tribe. Like the red-headed wood- 
peckers, the young males do not wear the bright-col- 
ored coats till the second season. 

With us the purple finch is but an irregular winter 
visitor, most frequently seen in the spring and fall. 
One often sees the finches in October roving over the 
fields and through the rustling wood. And in the 
spring, on an April day when you expect the very 
street to "Grow purple at your feet" these birds will 
be flying along the grass-grown roadside, feeding on 
the few remaining weed seeds. 

The purple finches are by nature seed eaters and 
their food for the most part is vegetable matter. Buds 
are eaten, too, both of fruit and forest trees. When 
breeding in the Northern woods the buds of the spruce 
and hemlock attract them. A small quantity of insect 
food is taken in the spring and summer, as larvae and 
small flies. They are fond of the soft shelled nuts of 
the forests. It is amusing to watch a flock of them 



30 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

thresh out the hop-like strobiles of the iron-wood or 
hornbeam tree. Jerking away at the tough strobiles, 
they tear open the bladdery bags with their stout bills, 
the dry bracts dropping to the ground, hulling the 
small nuts from the chaff quite as effectually as a ma- 
chine. 

Purple finches are known to sometimes travel with 
goldfinches, which in winter plumage bear a strong 
resemblance to them, but the former's creaking flight- 
notes enable you to distinguish them. 

When migrating in the spring and again in October, 
you hear the finch's song — a delicate warble. But 
before passing judgment upon his singing powers, go 
with him to the coniferous forests of the North where 
he sings his mating song — a love lyric of exquisite 
intonation. High up in a cone-bearing tree sits his 
mate) on her brown-speckled blue eggs. Do you won- 
der now what inspired the song of the week before? 
After all in that respect are we so very unlike the 
birds? Do we not sing our sweetest songs to the 
hearts that respo:id with love? 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 31 

THE WOODPECKER FAMILY (Picidae). 

How silent and forlorn the winter woods would be 
without the woodpeckers. A few of them remain 
North each year, and dare to thrust their probing 
bills into the heart of things. Those we hear oftenest 
are the downy, hairy, and red-headed woodpeckers, the 
yellow-bellied sapsucker, and the golden-winged 
woodpecker or flicker. 

Every active, wide-awake boy admires the wood- 
peckers. They are such excellent tree-climbers. Up 
and around the bole and boughs of the tree they go, 
never falling or even as much as losing balance. But 
what bird could not creep up the smoothest tree- 
trunk if he were given woodpecker toes. The four 
toes on the foot of a woodpecker, two in front and 
two behind, are so directed that they act as a kind of 
pinchers, assisting the bird to cling to upright objects. 
When in resting position, the stiff-pointed feathers 
of the tail serve as a stay or prop. Woodpeckers have 
strong, stout bills that serve them well both as handy 
tools and as musical instruments. With its bill a 
woodpecker can carve out a house or beat a rolling 
tattoo to its beloved mate. One minute it uses its bill 
as a chisel to cut into the dead wood, another minute 
it is a sounding-fork that locates an embedded tree 
borer. 

In dead trees and limbs hollowed out by them they 
have their nests, their white eggs lying on the dry 
chips at the bottom of the hole. The downy, hairy and 



32 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

red-headed woodpeckers lay from four to six white 
eggs, but the flicker is more prolific and lays from five 
to nine eggs, uniformly white. 

Perhaps none of the woodpeckers is as well known 
as the downy — that little visitor to your yard and 
orchard. He is the smallest of his tribe and I was 
just about to say the bravest of his fellows. This 
winter he has been almost a daily visitor to the trees 
along the street. Peck, peck, peck, he hammers away 
at the tree trunks, stops and looks around, pecks away 
again, halts a moment as if listening; then raps away 
again, puncturing the rough bark in search of food. 
When I hear downy tapping on the limb of an old 
tree, then suddenly stop, and begin a vigorous chisel- 
ing into the dry wood, probing his spear-like tongue 
into the cavity and drawing out a fat grub, I am re- 
minded of how a boy used to go into the melon patch, 
rap with his knuckles on the melons to test their ripe-' 
ness, and how chagrined he was when the sound misled 
and a green melon was pulled. But not so with downy. 
I doubt if he ever makes a mistake or sinks a hole in 
the wrong place. He locates the position of the wood- 
boring larvae with the exactness of a specialist, a sur- 
geon who knows his business. Let any one who is 
skeptical of downy's service as a tree surgeon go to 
the woods where he is at work, and watch him probe 
into the rough and loose bark for moth and beetle 
eggs. After observing his work for a w r eek or more 
on certain infected trees, make a careful examination 
of the operations he has performed, and you will be 



r 



**"'*&*■ 





i%* r mi f *s - 

The Woodland Had Been Transformed Into an Icy Fairyland. 





Where the Sandpiper Liked to Play. 




A Bird's Paradise, Along the Maumee. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 35 

greatly amazed at the results of your investigation. 
A saw mill was recently placed in a wood, frequented 
by a woodpecker. As I examined the various pieces of 
timber and tree-tops, where he had worked to de- 
stroy the forest-tree borers, I was quite ready to cor- 
roborate any report I might hear of his valuable serv- 
ices as a conservator of our forest trees. The downy 
woodpecker is almost altogether a grub-and-larvae 
eater, and for that reason, if for no other, he should 
be coaxed to live in the fruit trees of the orchards and 
dooryards. Every codling moth eaten will help to 
save your apples that would be otherwise spoiled and 
started on the road to decay. The downy is known 
to feed but sparingly on weed seeds and the berries of 
a few plants and shrubs, eating in season a small 
quantity of woodbine, dogwood and pokeberries. 

Downy, like most of the woodpeckers common to 
this section, is a permanent resident, taking up his 
abode in a hollow tree, often cutting a hole into an old 
dead one ; there he spends the winter. The next spring 
he may excavate another tree and change his place of 
abode. The abandoned holes are often appropriated 
by the chickadees as nesting places. 

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach'' 
is an adage that might apply fully as well to birds as 
to men. Feed the downy woodpecker w T hen he is 
hungry, and you win him to your orchard. Suet, dried 
fruits, cracked nuts, marrow, and bones are relished 
by the downies. Suet and cartilage tied to a branch 
attract him on the cold days. Cracked nuts and dried 



36 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

fruits, such as currants and raisins, placed on the 
feeding shelves allay his hunger. Old, dead tree- 
trunks, placed in the orchard, furnish them nesting- 
places. 

Before introducing you to the hairy woodpecker, 
you must take some notice of downy's appearance that 
you may know him ever after. He has a light breast, a 
scarlet stripe runs across the black nape, a white streak 
extends down the center back, wings are black spotted 
with white, inner tail feathers are black, and the outer 
ones white checked with black spots. 

The Hairy Woodpecker. 

So much like the downy does this w r oodpecker look, 
that he is often taken for him, but he is several inches 
longer and this difference in size aids in properly 
placing him. The color marks of the two birds are very 
similar, an exception being made in the outer tail 
feathers, hairy's being white, and downy's white w T ith 
black spots. The hairy woodpecker has a more se- 
clusive nature than the downy, and prefers staying 
in the woods, where he gets his food in the same 
manner as the downy. 

One morning I watched a hairy woodpecker sinking 
his shallow well-pits into a red cedar. Peck, peck, his 
little hammer kept cutting away like a woodman's 
axe. Only resting at short intervals, he continued his 
work for more than an hour and a half. When he 
had finished, I examined his work. Into the trunk 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 37 

sixty-four wells had been sunk and that within a radius 
of eight inches. Each tiny well would have held a 
sweet pea seed. Each well seemed to have been dug 
where the surface was covered with an exuberance of 
sap crystals. Did his appetite call for the aromatic 
bark or the resinous crystals? — is a question still un- 
answered. 

Red-headed Woodpecker. 

From behind the telephone post the red-headed 
woodpecker plays a pretty peek-a-boo, shuffling part 
way round, then retreating to the opposite side of the 
pole, he keeps one guessing as to his next move. 
Sometimes he doesn't finish the game at all, but 
hastily flies away then flaps against the trunk of a big 
tree, climbing it easily, as a spurred lineman does the 
tall pole. When he has reached the top, he cries out 
noisily, then circling about a branch, he flies to an- 
other tree. For years the red-headed woodpeckers 
have taken possession of the great oaks on the college 
campus. They are a noisy set in the springtime, beat- 
ing their err-rat-tat-toos, rolling love-calls, from the 
resonant limbs. Drumming on the dry, hard wood, 
pecking and drilling into the coarse bark, shrieking 
from the tree-tops, they are as jubilant as a corps of 
drum majors before a battle. 

The red-headed woodpecker is so conspicuous, be- 
cause of his color arrangement, that it is easy to know 
him. His flag-like coat suggests a nation's emblem. 



38 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

Invert the colors of the German flag and you have the 
colors of his attractive coat : red, white, black. The 
young birds do not have red heads the first season, in- 
stead their crowns are a dark grayish brown, and their 
light breasts more or less streaked with a blackish 
brown. Gradually as the season advances their breasts 
become uniformly white and their wings and tails 
blacker. 

The red-headed woodpecker gets some of his food 
on the wing, after the manner of the wood pewee and 
other fly-catchers. Beetles and grasshoppers form 
more than a third of his food. In the summer he eats 
wild fruits and berries. In June the red-heads help 
themselves freely to the wormy fruit. When they re- 
main all winter, as a few of them do, other nutty food 
and dried berries are eaten. They also get some food 
from the ground, taking the insects that lurk in the 
leaves and grasses. These woodpeckers seem able to 
adapt themselves ' to their surroundings, changing 
their fare to the food of the prevailing season. 

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. 

This bird is but a casual winter resident or transient 
visitor in most sections of the country. The male 
wears a scarlet crown ; the back is barred with black 
and a buff-white ; wings spotted with white ; tail, black, 
outer feathers with white margins ; throat, red ; breast, 
black, under parts, pale yellow; sides streaked with 
black. He can always be distinguished from other 



OUR DOOk YARD FRIENDS 39 

woodpeckers by the black patch on his breast and his 
red throat. The female's throat is white and the 
crown a grayish black. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is 
the one species of the woodpecker family that drills 
into the trunks of the trees for the mere purpose of 
getting the sap from the wood. As the sap collects in 
the little pit thus made he drinks it empty. In the 
course of a day he may thus drive and empty several 
dozen wells. Because of this sap-sucking habit which 
works injury to the trees whose bodies have been 
punctured by numerous wells, he has become the tar- 
get for the guns of men and boys. Before the law 
made the killing of the yellow-bellied sapsucker an 
offence, boys and men with shot guns often patrolled 
the woods, shooting them for mere sport; they may 
live to pay the penalty of their misdirected sport, for 
the yellow-bellied sapsucker is rapidly disappearing 
from our woods. The damage he does to trees is not 
great, and the little injury wrought is fully compen- 
sated by the insects he consumes. 

The Flicker or Golden- Winged Woodpecker. 

The flicker is so generally distributed throughout 
the country that most persons know him as a wood- 
pecker that feeds on the ground as well as in the trees 
"I saw a flicker licking up ants in an ant-hill" is an 
observation commonly reported by our Boys' Audubon 
Club. Yes, the flicker likes ants and eats hundreds of 
them. The Ohio State Experiment Station reports 



40 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

that one yellow hammer's stomach contained more 
than 3,000 ants. His bill and tongue are well suited 
for ant-hunting ; with his long, stout bill he probes the 
hill or mound, the ants readily adhering to the tongue, 
which is as rough as a file and covered with a sticky 
substance. He also feeds upon the ants living in the 
bark and outer wood of the trees, licking them up in 
their runways. In the summer, when he is getting a 
part of his food from the ground, the flicker eats a 
great many crickets and grasshoppers. He does not 
drill into tree-trunks for food as other members of the 
woodpecker family do. The purpose of his hammering 
is to cut or enlarge an opening for a home or nesting- 
place, and he may occupy the same hole for more than 
one season. 

The flickers are migratory, only a few of them re- 
maining North for the winter, and these usually stay 
in the thick woods where they occupy the holes and 
hollows of dead trees. Yesterday, a flicker left the 
woods to come to a tree where he took away with him 
a piece of suet. The flicker, like the rest of us, likes 
fatty food in freezing weather. 

One thinks of him as a big brown bird, and yet he 
probably has as many colors to his credit as Joseph's 
coat had. Six distinct colors are found in his plum- 
age : gray, red, black, brown, white and yellow. The 
top of his head is dark gray; back of his neck, red; 
back, brown marked with black ; lower back or rump, 
white; under the wings, yellow; breast, light rufous, 
spotted with dark spots and marked with a black cres- 
cent. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



41 



The flicker is known by a great many names. One 
man calls him a "yellow hammer," another, a "higH 
hole/' and a third, an Easterner, a "clape." But no 
matter what you call him, he is the same cheery, chatty 
bird wherever he is found, not a foe but a friend to 
mankind. 




FLICKEP 



Do you understand why the woodpeckers, nut- 
hatches and other such birds creep around, over and 
under the tree branches, pecking into the little 



42 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

JUNCOS OR SNOWBIRDS. 

When the air has in it an icy crispness, I find the 
juncos coming to the stripped currant bushes in the 
garden. Just as a playful wind picks up a handful- of 
leaves, forcing them upwards into an airy whirlpool, 
then dropping them to earth, so these little snowbirds 
rise from the garden and drop into the weeds of the 
woodlot. Then back to the garden they go for the 
remaining hemp seeds still shuttled in the dry heads. 

Restless, active, little creatures they are. Their 
slaty-gray backs are a good match to the gray-black 
stems and stalks, as if the dead hemp had put on win- 
ter leaves to mock their somber severity. Not only 
are their backs dark but the iron-gray color extends 
well over their throats and ends in a distinct line across 
the breast where the w T hite begins. Their outer tail 
feathers are white, showing conspicuously in flight, 
making them easy to follow. The female junco has 
more of a brownish back, and a paler throat and breast. 
Both male and female have flesh colored bills. 

Usually, the first note that escapes the junco after 
his arrival is a short, snappy 'tsip." But listen for 
his song. It has that delicate clink and tinkle to it 
that makes you want to catch every note. Sometimes 
a whole flock will break spontaneously into a chorus 
of merry trills, followed by a succession of sweet, musi- 
cal twitterings. 

Often when driving over a frozen road, a flock of 
juncos will start up from the weedy fence row where 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 43 

they have been feeding, and flit along the roadside, as 
vesper sparrows do, always keeping a little ahead and 
out of reach of me. Again I see them feeding on the 
seeds in a neglected meadow; ragweed, smartweed, 
and other weed seeds appeal to them. Nine-tenths of 
their food is small grain and seeds. Only a small per 
cent of their winter food is animal or insect, consist- 
ing for the most part of beetles, spiders, and various 
kinds of small insects. 

Juncos are quite sociable creatures, and often go 
about with field and song sparrows nor do they shun 
the associations of the garrulous English sparrows. 
When snow and ice has much of their food under lock 
and key, the juncos join the house sparrows in the 
barnyard, where they pick up a breakfast from the 
litter of seeds shaken from the hay and straw. Often 
they flit about on the doorsteps at the rear of the 
house, where small particles of food have been dropped. 
How eagerly they skim over the ground in search of 
dainties. 

The juncos are not only winter residents in most of 
the central states, but in the woods of mountainous 
districts they may be found the year round. However, 
I have come across them in the Maumee valley, in the 
summer months, undoubtedly, a delinquent or transient 
flock. 

To find their nests one must generally go north of 
forty-five degrees or into the highlands and uplands 
of the mountains. Like the towhee buntings, juncos 
are found about brush piles and rotted tree-tops. They 



44 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



build either on or very near the ground. The nest is 
quite compactly made of moss, grasses, and rootlets, 
lined with hair and fine grasses. 

In the weedy fields and open woods there is more 
than food enough for the juncos. It is only when the 
snow lies knee-deep or when the landscape is under 
cover of a thick ice-coating that one needs to assist 
nature and provide some extra nourishment for the 
feathered folk. At such a time the best plan is to take 
the seeds to their natural feeding grounds, clear away 
the snow and ice, and scatter the seeds on the bare 
places, or one may erect a rude platform of boards on 
which the food may be placed. 




HOUSE WREN 



Did you ever watch the little wren hunting mos- 
quitoes about the outside nooks of your buildings, 
or along the fence or wall? 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 45 

THE WAXWING. 

My first cedar waxwing was a dead one. A young 
boy found it lying near the sidewalk under a clump 
of white pines. He brought it to me, saying, "I have 
found a dead bird — what is it?" Scarcely had the life- 
less creature touched my hand when my eyes caught 
sight of the coral red, wax-like beads on the wings ; 
just as if some one had stamped each feather tip of 
the upper wing with a tiny drop of sealing wax. "It's 
a cedar waxwing," I exclaimed quite confidently, for 
just then a mental picture of him helped to fix his 
identity. It was a kind of sorry-glad feeling that I 
had. Glad that I had him, but sorry that he lay cold 
and stiff in my warm hands. My joy would have been 
a thousand-fold greater could I have been under the 
pines and put out my hand to him in welcome. 

What caused his death I am unable to say. There 
were no signs of gunshots or marks of violence upon 
his body. Had he been found lying at the base of a 
tall-spired building, the report of the coroner's inquest 
would have read, "Accidental death, dashed against 
the dark spire." 

Before his burial, I wished to make sure of his iden- 
tity, that I might know any of his family ever after. 
The description follows: he wears a conspicuous, 
crested cap. Forehead and chin, black. Back — strong, 
grayish brown. Wings and tail— gray, the latter with 
yellow band at its end. Secondaries — with small seal- 



46 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

ing-wax tips. Breast — same as back, changing into 
yellowish on belly. Length — nearly 7| inches. 

A few days later I had the great joy of seeing sev- 
eral of the dead bird's relatives, in the red cedar trees, 
feeding on the berries. I wondered if he had been 
one of this small flock of six, and whether they really 
missed him. 

The cedar waxwings are of a very high caste of 
bird creatures. So refined and gentle are they in their 
ways, their dress so modest and subdued in color, that 
they are the embodiment of bird ideals in clothes and 
conduct. But not so in song, for they are almost voice- 
less. They do not sing. One must listen closely to 
hear their low whistled notes, a kind of wheezy, whis- 
pered communication in which each member partici- 
pates. 

The waxwings travel over a wide range of territory. 
As permanent residents they are found in most parts 
of eastern U. S., and they breed anywhere from Vir- 
ginia to Labrador. It is believed that many of the 
cedar birds spend their winters in the South, but not 
all. A number of the migrating train remain in the 
various states during the winter. One sees more wax- 
wings in the early spring and late in the fall. Only an 
occasional flock is seen at other times of the year, feed- 
ing upon the berries in the mountain ash, or taking 
the last dried fruit from the wild cherry. 

The economic value of these birds should be recog- 
nized for they take the elm beetles from our forest 
trees, and the grubs, worms, and caterpillars from our 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 47 

orchards. But it is a rare thing nowadays to see a 
flock feeding in an old orchard, for the orchards are 
disappearing as rapidly as the birds. 

In the spring when insect life is more abundant, the 
waxwings feed sparingly on bugs, beetles, and grass- 
hoppers, but it must be remembered that they are veg- 
etarians, taking but thirteen per cent of animal matter 
as food. In autumn the waxwings roam about over 
the country, getting their feed from the berries of the 
woods and fields ; woodbine, hawthorn, dogwood and 
juniper berries are then eaten morning, noon and 
night. 



Birds are an asset ; just as great an asset as 
trees, grass and flowers. Many species subsist en- 
tirely upon winged insects which come to destroy 
your fruits, crops and trees. 



48 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

THE BROWN CREEPER. 

Some day when you are out in the woods, your at- 
tention may be arrested by a rather weak, squeaky 
note. You look all about, endeavoring to locate the 
place from which it came. Suddenly, almost before 
your very eyes a dark bird drops from a tree and lands 
head-up against the trunk of another. To follow him 
is not an easy task for so much does he look like the 
bark of the tree over which he creeps that he is not 
readily seen even at close range. 

A close observation reveals that his back has a mix- 
ture of subdued colors, dark brown, white and dull 
tan; rump, a lighter brown; the tail, light grayish 
brown, and white under parts. 

You may call him the brown creeper, for he belongs 
to the Old World family of creepers, and is the only 
one of the twelve species that is found in the eastern 
part of our country. As a common winter resident, 
he has a wide range, being at home in most of the 
states south of Canada. A true tree-creeper is he, using 
his stiff tail as a prop, like the woodpeckers. 

Rarely, will you find a bird who is more interesting 
than the quiet, queer-acting little creeper. His slow, 
deliberate movements as he winds spirally up and 
around one tree trunk after another, may tax your 
time and patience. You expect him to say something, 
to make some sound, either of song or motion. But 
he is w^holly unconscious of your thoughts and presence 
and goes noiselessly on with his food-getting work, 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 49 

uttering only occasionally thin bat-like squeaks. He 
does sing a touching little strain but it is sung to the 
tender ear of his mate in the fir-bearing trees of the 
North. 

So well does the brown creeper like the cold, thin 
atmosphere that he and his mate either go to the north 
woods to rear their young or into the uplands of the 
Alleghanies. Behind a piece of gaping bark of a tree 
some twigs, moss, and fluffy stuff are arranged into a 
nest, in which are laid five to eight white eggs, spotted 
with brown and lavender, chiefly at the larger end. 

Watch the brown creeper as he zigzags up a tree 
trunk ; going around, backing down, then up again till 
he has spied into every hidden closet looking for its 
skeleton. See him with his hard, curved bill tear open 
the tree spider's egg sac. Small insects, eggs, larvae, 
all disappear before him ; he is only taking what rightly 
belongs to him — parasites of the tree trunks. You 
must give him the credit of being a tree doctor of no 
mean reputation, for in the coldest weather, Mr. 
Creeper is busily engaged relieving the big trees from 
infective diseases. How much he assists in keeping 
them in a healthy condition, is best proven by the 
food he eats, a large part of which is composed of 
destructive insects ; which conceal their eggs and larvae 
in the interstices of the bark of shrubs and trees. 

While you find the creeper in the woods oftener 
than in any other place, he frequently comes to the 
trees of the lawns and dooryards, especially during 
the months of April and November, 



50 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

THE CARDINAL. 

Just why I am more optimistic while the cardinal 
sings than at any other time, I do not know. There 
is something in his song that seems to strike the note 
of kinship, and of universal faith that 

"God is in His Heaven, 
All's right with the world. ,, 

Perhaps it is the way he sings that forces one to 
believe in one's self and one's fellowmen. He certainly 
is not a half-hearted performer but a soloist of the 
highest type. With what power and enthusiasm he 
executes each performance, regardless of the number of 
times it has been rendered. How his clear whistled 
notes ring out on the midwintejr day, "whew-eet whew- 
eet, whet year, whet year," and then the forcefully 
accented "purty, purty, purty." Is it any wonder that 
such a magnificent singer should inspire the writers 
of "The Kentucky Cardinal," and "The Song of The 
Cardinal" to paint glowing eulogies of this Caruso of 
birdland? 

The cardinal is a common permanent resident 
although w r e see less of him in the summer when he 
spends most of his time in the deep woods. In the 
early spring one hears his familiar call note, a short 
explosive "tsip" in the trees of the lawns and streets. 
At this time, the female's song — very sweet and 
pleasing — breaks in a passionate outburst from some 
bare tree. The male responds, and vibrating waves 




Blue Jay sitting on the hand of the President 
of an Audubon Society. 




Yellow Warbler's Nest. 



OUR DO OR YARD FRIENDS 53 

of merry whistled tunes float from the throats of the 
pair. 

In the central states, the cardinals usually travel 
about in single pairs through the spring months but 
congregate in flocks in the winter season. In the 
south where they are more abundant they wander 
about in flocks throughout the year. 

Early in May nest building begins, and for a few r 
days Mrs. Cardinal is a busy bird, getting her sticks, 
straws, and rootlets for the nest which she places in 
some thorny bush or tree. When she comes to our 
dooryard, she usually selects such a tree or bush that 
will conceal her home; a rose bush, a mulberry tree, 
a honeysuckle vine, may prove very attractive to her. 

The cardinal lays three or four greenish or bluish 
white eggs, spotted with dull browns. When the 
female leaves the nest, the male remains near-by, often 
exercising the greatest care and protection over it. On 
her return, he flies farther away to some tree top 
where he pours out his heart in passionate song. When 
sitting, if disturbed, she flies from the nest to some 
place not far away, where she suspiciously watches 
every move of the intruder. When the coast is clear, 
she flits noiselessly back to the nest. 

The cardinal's good looks puts him in constant dan- 
ger of those who seek his life. His crimson coat is a 
strong revealing mark and coveted by the seekers of 
fashion. Notwithstanding all the laws, clubs, and 
societies that afford him protection, he is still secretly 
caught and slain by the cruel and the vicious, who 



54 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

regard neither law nor life. The female is more 
modestly attired and thus less conspicuous. Her wings 
and tail are a dull red ; back, olive-brown ; throat, gray- 
ish black; and under parts, buff, tinged with rosiness 
on the breast. 

The cardinal relishes a mixed diet of seeds, grains, 
fruits and insects. Through the winter months, he 
lives largely on weed seeds, buds, black beetles, and 
dried berries. In the summer, ants, bugs, crickets, 
caterpillars, and grasshoppers are eaten. A friend of 
mine tells me of the cardinal coming to the back porch 
for his daily ration of table crumbs. If fed during the 
winter season, he becomes quite tame and you may be 
able to coax from him one of his rapturous songs, 
even on a very cold day. 



Feeding the birds in winter is absolutely necessary 
if you would keep them about your homes in summer. 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 55 

MEADOWLARKS. 

A Washington's Birthday seldom passes that I do 
not hear the shrill, piercing notes of the meadowlarks 
or field larks as some may wish to call them. Some- 
times they arrive a day or two earlier than February 
22, but not often. In this latitude, forty-one degrees 
north, only a few remain all winter; but farther south 
they are common winter residents. 

Often on a clear, stinging February morning, from 
tree tops, fence posts and bare meadows, these larks 
whistle their variant clarion calls of approaching 
springtime. Their flute-like notes never escape the 
ear of the farmer boy who sees and hears. It is he 
who is the first to announce, "The meadowlarks are 
here. Spring is coming !" Spring may sleep on a 
fortnight or more in the lap of Winter; but the boy 
has caught something of the bird's buoyant spirit that 
quickens hrs step, and turns his soul-spirit into the 
creative realm of returning life and action. He sees 
the returning robins, bluebirds, and song sparrows; 
hears their carols, warbles and trills, though they be 
many miles away. It is he who loves the larks and 
protects their nesting-places. 

It is not always that the field larks find meadows 
that are left undisturbed by the farmer's plowshare, or 
the knives of the mower, or untrampled by the hoofs 
of cattle or horses. Fortunately, there are meadows 
where no farm implement or domestic animal has 
broken the thick sod for a score of years; where the 



56 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

grasses grow and ripen, fertilize the soil and propa- 
gate life. In one such meadow — a larks' retreat — 
dozens of nests were found each spring and summer. 

On the morning of May 18th, I was walking through 
this meadow on my way to the woods, when I came 
upon three larks' nests, so cleverly tucked away under 
tufts of timothy and grasses that even an experienced 
eye might not have seen them. The nests, built flat 
upon the ground, were made wholly of grasses. Over 
them the longer blades of grass had been dexterously 
pulled to form a protective color-arch for the eggs, 
concealing them from bird enemies. In one nest there 
were four young birds about two days old ; in another 
there were six white eggs, mottled and specked with 
brown ; and another had but four eggs. That I might 
continue my observations, I marked their places by the 
weeds that grew near them. The first was near some 
stalks of mayweed ; the second nest, under the pro- 
tection of a common field thistle; and the third, was 
partially overrun by cinquefoil or five-finger. The 
mother bird would always remain on the nest until 
I was so close that in a few more steps I might have 
crushed her beneath my feet, but always before the 
fatal step, she would fly off muttering a whirring 
alarm much like that of the quail. Like many other 
birds, the meadowlarks do not fly directly to their 
nests, but fly over the meadow and light a short dis- 
tance from the nests, then walk to them. On the third 
day, the young larks were only partially covered with 
a fuzzy down, not unlike in color to the grasses and 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 5? 

earth near them. Soon their pinkish skin was entirely 
covered with down and on the upper part of their 
wings, feathers sprouted. In a few days their white 
triangular-shaped bills grew darker and harder. 

Frank Chapman in Bird Life says that the eggs of 
the meadowlark are laid about May 15th. This is true 
in some states but I have found them much earlier 
than this. My notes for 1911 read: April 30th, mead- 
owlarks, robins, mourning doves, field and song spar- 
rows, and hairbirds' nests contain their full quota of 
eggs. It is merely a conjecture, but I am inclined to 
favor it as a fact, that the larks that nest in April are 
those that raise three broods in one season. 

The protection afforded by the coloring of the 
meadowlark is very great. In early spring and in 
late autumn a flock of larks will start from the dry 
meadow and light in some other part of it ; not till they 
walk about can you see them for their dull mottled 
backs are so like the color of the meadow that they 
seem to be a part of it. In winter, their plumage is 
somewhat lighter; the black becomes a dusky brown, 
the yellow is slightly weathered, and the whole plum- 
age is uniformly blended and toned down. 

You may know the meadowlark by the conspicuous 
black crescent on its yellow breast, and the sparrowy 
appearance of the back. The outer tail feathers are 
white, showing conspicuously when flying. 

As an insect-eating bird, the meadowlark is very 
valuable to the farmer. The U. S. Biological Survey 
examined 285 stomachs of meadowlarks to determine 



58 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

the kinds of food eaten. Mr. Beal of that department 
reported that seventy-three per cent was animal food 
and twenty-seven, vegetable. Of the animal food, 
grasshoppers made up twenty-nine per cent, which 
was increased to sixty-nine per cent in August, when 
the insects are abundant. Caterpillars, twenty-eight 
per cent, ground beetles, twenty-one per cent, and the 
other insects were chinch bugs, cut worms, spiders, 
flies, and wasps. Grasshoppers were preferred and 
were eaten whenever they could be found. Of the 
vegetable food, grain and weed seeds constituted the 
larger part. The meadowlark eats a small amount of 
grain but it more than pays for this by taking the 
troublesome seeds of ragweed, smartweed, and barn 
grass from the fields. Who would not give the mead- 
owlarks a daily breakfast of grain in return for the 
grasshoppers taken from the clover meadows or the 
chinch bugs and cutworms from the corn and wheat 
fields? 

Notwithstanding the efforts that are put forth to 
protect the meadowlarks, they are decreasing in num- 
bers in many localities. This decrease may be due 
to several causes, the chief one being the disturbance 
of their nesting-places; the plowshares, the mowing- 
machines, the herds of cattle and droves of horses 
destroy many eggs and young larks that might other- 
wise have grown to maturity. The shotgun brings 
to the ground too many birds each returning autumn. 
When will men cease to rob and to kill? It is not 
mere sentiment that causes me to make this plea for 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



59 



a bird so valuable to the farmer and agriculturist. 
Had you seen the fields of corn, blackened with chinch 
bugs ; and the clover meadows, swarming with grass- 
hoppers; you, too, would have said, "The insects are 
many, they that eat them are few." 

"The summer came and all the birds were dead; 
The days were like hot coals, the very ground 
Was burned to ashes ; in the orchard fed 
Myriads of caterpillars, and around 
The cultivated fields and garden beds 
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found 
No foe to check their march, till they had made 
The land a desert without leaf or shade." 
Why? Because the meadow lark is dead. 




THE MEADOW LARK 



60 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

REDPOLLS. 

For more than ten years with each returning spring, 
I listened for new bird notes, not that I had grown 
tired of the old and familiar ones, but I hungered for 
the pleasure of hearing a new song, of making another 
acquaintance. This joy was mine on the morning of 
March 4, 1911. The earth was still and cold from a 
succession of hard frosts, the air crisp and chill. A 
few of the summer residents had arrived, but more 
were on their way. 

From the low cedars near the garden, there came a 
chorus of unknown voices ; something like the chuck- 
ling chatter of j uncos and yet not the same, it was 
different from the hairbird's twitter and still slightly 
suggestive of it; in action similar to the canary-like 
notes of the goldfinch. No. I had heard nothing like 
this concert before. New actors had come with a 
joyous song that was quite their own. I was so 
thoroughly intoxicated with their music that I walked 
boldly up to the cedars to see the performers. Such 
an intrusion was alarming to these visitors of the hour. 
With a triumphant chant, they took wing, flying to a 
wild cherry tree in a near-by meadow. In my insane 
enthusiasm, field glass and kodak were unthought of, 
but two good eyes served me well. I followed them 
hastily. Their undulating flight and call notes made 
one think of the goldfinches but not till they descended 
to the lowest branches of the tree where the red, 
crown caps and pink washes on the breasts and rumps 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 61 

of the males, could be seen, did I know them. Red- 
polls! I exclaimed. Such a host of them! There 
must have been no less than two hundred in the flock, 
estimating from the numbers that were on the various 
branches of the trees. A minute of chatter, a whir of 
wings and they were in the young peach orchard. It 
seemed they did not miss a single branch. Twittering, 
skipping, singing, flitting, eating, they made their way 
from tree to tree. I wish that I might know how many 
buds, moth eggs, and scales they ate that cold March 
morning. Never had the peach trees gotten such a 
cleansing. Strange as it may seem, there was a good 
crop of peaches that season and but few wormy ones. 
No sprays had been used. Would that the redpolls 
could stop off on their spring tours to the north each 
season. 

A few days later a flock, perhaps the same, was seen 
in a sheltered ravine of an old pasture land, where they 
were feeding upon the weed seeds that were still 
housed under weathered coverlets. What a picture 
they did make ! Swinging in the weather-beaten stalks, 
pulling, chuckling, flitting — a unison of sound and mo- 
tion. At another time, the whole flock stopped to feed 
in a clover field where the previous summer there had 
been an abundant growth of chicory. Poor famished 
things ! The black, four-sided seeds were, no doubt, as 
palatable to them on that spring day as the green 
leaves are to us when our appetites crave for what our 
grandmothers call "greens." 



62 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

In the fields where there has not been a rotation' of 
crops, chicory grows abundantly, often infesting both 
clover and alfalfa meadows. Redpolls in their irregular 
migrations often stop in alfalfa fields to feed upon the 
chicory seeds. Since young alfalfa is easily killed by 
weeds, redpolls help to serve the growers of alfalfa 
crops by eating the weed seeds. 

It is the occasional or transient bird visitors to which 
we are most attracted, they are with us but a few- 
weeks and then may not return for a number of years. 
If a troop of Eskimos from the Arctic islands were to 
pass through our country occasionally, every American 
citizen would take some note of their pilgrimage, but 
passing few are they who are concerned about the 
lesser redpolls who travel from distant icy regions 
to spend an occasional winter with us. 

"The redpoll linnets/' says Bradford Torrey, "are 
irregular visitors in this region (New England). Sev- 
eral years may pass and not one be seen." This is also 
true of the Ohio Valley region. Mr. Leander Kiser, 
who so faithfully watched the birds in Ohio, makes no 
mention of the redpolls in "In Birdland," but since its 
publication, several migrations have been noted. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 63 

OUR BOBWHITES. 

A few of our state legislatures have come to realize 
that the passing of the passenger pigeon will have its 
parallel in the passing of the bobwhife if laws are not 
enforced prohibiting the shooting of this bird. While 
pot-hunting has not been permitted for several years, 
still there has been a continuous slaughter in the hunt- 
ing season of birds shot on the wing. Where the 
prohibitory laws are obeyed the restrictions have 
proved of permanent benefit to the quail. During the 
armistice declared by the state, they will have time to 
rear their families in peace. 

For several years at least, the disturbing report of a 
gun will not affect them. But haven't we been rather 
slow in recognizing the economic value of these birds 
of our fields and woods? Notwithstanding the pro- 
tection given them in recent years in certain sections 
of the country, the rate of increase has been very 
small, and in others noted decreases have been re- 
ported. After all it may be a case of locking the barn 
after the horse is stolen. A precaution taken too late 
is of little consequence, and it may be we have waited 
too long to save our quail from partial extermination. 
The woods about me once swarmed with ruffed 
grouse, now we have but few. May not the same 
thing happen to the bobwhite? 

Poverty and want usually follow in the wake of 
great extravagance. When fifty or more quails are 
served at a dinner as the spoils of one hunt, is it any 



64 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

wonder that they are disappearing? Not more than 
two score and ten years ago, northern Ohio and other 
states were overrun by large bevies of grouse and 
quail, now, one does well to find one bevy to a square 
mile of land. Just a few years ago several hundred 
bobwhites were brought into a town at Thanksgiving 
time to be eaten by men who said thanksgiving grace 
at their tables. Had these men bred and raised them, the 
case would have been different, but to go into the woods 
and mercilessly destroy the innocent and defenseless, 
is nothing less than wholesale slaughter and murder. 
Ignoring the "No Hunting" signs, these men tramped 
through the w r oods shooting, killing, and bagging the 
quail as they went. I will not call them sportsmen 
for a sportsman makes some distinction as to the kind 
and number of wild creatures to be taken, but not so 
with the man with the gun on his shoulder, who 
blazes away at every living thing that may come with- 
in seeing distance. 

But here comes an old quail, hunter who says : 
"Might as well let us shoot 'em, as to let 'em starve." 
True enough, but is there any reason for letting the 
birds starve? Could not each farmer look after the quail 
that frequent his fields and woods? Waste seed in 
chaff, cracked corn, and a little small grain w r ould not 
be missed from your barn and granary. If the food is 
put under cover in the woods near their roosts, old de- 
cayed legs, brush heaps, and thickets, the quail will 
find it. One can imagine the condition of the quails 
when their food lies under cover of a thick, loose snow ; 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 65 

in an attempt to leave the roosting-place in search of 
food they flounder about in the deep snow, hungry and 
exhausted, the bitter-biting North does the rest. 
Starved and frozen, you find their cold lifeless forms, 
the day after. Systematic feeding during the winter 
weeks of snow and ice would do much to save the 
quail from starvation. 

Possibly the only hope we have of preventing a 
marked decrease in the number of quail, is in the fact 
that they are quite easily domesticated. A number 
of men have begun raising quail and make it as much 
of a business as the raising of poultry. 

A study of bobwhite's food reveals some interesting 
facts. In late fall and winter he lives chiefly on weed 
seeds. Ragweed, pigweed, sheep sorrel, pigeon weed, 
jewel weed, and other miscellaneous weeds constitute 
more than three-fifths of his food; another fifth is 
grain, fruit, buds, and leaves, and the remaining frac- 
tional part consists of animal matter. Most of the 
seeds he eats are noxious. They are the seeds of the 
weeds and grasses that every farmer would like to 
exterminate from his fields and pastures. In the sum- 
mer bobwhite takes more animal matter, and eats bugs, 
beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and other insects. 
Among the injurious insects taken are the potato and 
cucumber beetles, cutworms, army worms, clover 
weevil and chinch bugs. 

Every tiller of the soil knows just what the Colorado 
potato beetle did to his last year's potato patch, what 
the grasshoppers did to his clover, the chinch bugs to 



66 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

his corn and wheat crops, and yet he permits the best 
exterminator of these terrible pests to die or be killed 
almost before his own eyes. Just this morning a man 
shot a quail, in defiance of the law. "He can be fined 
for doing it," said one, "but I won't report him for he 
is my neighbor." Might he not as well have gone to 
his neighbor's poultry yard and shot one of his Rhode 
Island Reds? 

Bobwhite raises a large family, and by careful pro- 
tection of the nesting place the size of his family may 
be greatly increased, for sometimes two broods are 
raised in one season. About the first week in May ten 
to eighteen, and sometimes as many as twenty-two, 
white eggs are laid in a grass-lined oven, or in a grassy 
dip in the ground. I used to find many quails' nests 
in the fence rows of timothy meadows where they 
were seldom discovered by common bird enemies. In 
recent years they seem to have taken to nesting in the 
open woods as well as in pasture grounds. Neither 
man nor dog should be permitted to disturb the nest 
in the least. Bobwhites are very sensitive creatures; 
if the eggs are turned or moved ever so little, it will 
cause them to desert the nest. Mother bobwhite often 
places her nest near an old log, or a tumbled-down 
stump, where there is little danger of it being 
trampled upon by cattle browsing in the woodland. 

Almost as soon as they are hatched the little quail 
chicks begin to follow after their parents, hunting for 
food. They run over the brown-plowed fields, through 
the grassy meadows, and into the woods and thickets, 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 



67 



gleaning the seeds and insects from the ground and 
grasses. When an intruder comes too near, the mother 
quail utters a note of alarm, and no sooner is the danger 
signal given, than every bobwhite seems to disappear, 
while the intruder's attention is directed upon the 
mother bird floundering about on the ground, feigning 
a broken wing or acting as if injured, while the young 
birds are snugly tucked away in places concealing 
them. In a few minutes one hears a sudden whirr-rr 
of wings and away she goes. 




BARN SWALLOW 



68 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

WITH THE KINGLETS. 

On a cool morning in early autumn you are 
awakened by a weak, distant "tse, tse, see." Then faint 
little chords, struck lightly, escape from the ripening 
leaves of the maple trees near your window, and you 
know that the kinglets have come. What a delicious 
serenade they give you ! Somehow, you become con- 
scious that summer is gone — that the sun is lowering 
in the eastern horizon — and that its milder beams fail 
to dispel the chill in your room. The various masses 
of turning leaves have ripened into deeper yellows, tans 
and russets, and from the maples you miss the warbling 
note of the vireo. 

A little more rest, a little more slumber, you think, 
and are loath to leave the bed that gives such a sense 
of comfort on this keen autumn morning. But the 
little golden-crowned creatures seem to grow more 
nervous and tantalizing. Every branch and twig is 
suddenly alive. You can resist no longer; the fever 
of unrest is on. You are dressed, breakfasted and out 
in the crisp air, while the frost still holds to leaf and 
stricken flower. Almost imperceptibly this great pas- 
sion for a taste of the out-of-doors seizes you. Away 
from shop and store and school it takes you. Away 
from the grind of mills and hum of wheels, Nature's 
great dynamo starts you. The kinglets have come, 
and you long to be free — free as the wind that stirs 
the oak; free as the air that lightens your footsteps; 




Catbird's nest. 




A Blue Jay Ready to Feed the Young in the Cage. 










A Young Mourning Dove, Ready to Leave the Nest. 
Catbird's Nest. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 71 

free as the little creatures that stir in the autumn 
leaves. 

Just to b,e out with the wild things, with beast, 
bird and flower is now your great delight — far out 
into the advancing oaks, elms, and maples which seem 
so mysteriously near. Down the wayside road you 
wander, by weedy ditch in autumn array of violet aster 
and purple ironweed, belated goldenrod and evening 
primrose, wild yarrow and fragrant everlasting, closed 
gentians and blossoming brunella. Along the old rail 
fence, with its clumps of sumac and the wild rose 
stalks, brilliant with scarlet leaves and hips, past the 
rambling blackberry vines, whose last leaves you fear 
to touch, you make your way. But you are not alone ; 
above you in the oaks and elms are the kinglets, clear- 
ing insect life from leaf and twig. What blessings 
they bring to you in next season's fruits and flowers ! — 
For never can it be known how many orchard blos- 
soms bear fruit because of their visits. 

Down the lane their high-pitched notes follow you. 
Little heed is now given to the jay's squall, the nut- 
hatch's "yank," and the woodpecker's "quirk." The 
kinglets have come and you are content. The narrow- 
ing lane becomes a cattle-beaten trail into the magic 
wood, but the day is yours, and you follow it. Under 
the strong oaks you go. By red haw and dogwood 
tree, through clumps of hawthorn, you tread your 
way. Ripe, woodsy things emit their sweet scent 
everywhere ; from woodland fruit and steaming leaves, 
you inhale the wholesome aroma of the forest, 



72 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

It is but natural that you heed the impulse of your 
own heart and follow the trail to the still lake, hidden 
in the hills, where you study the skill of the belted 
kingfisher, teeter with the sandpiper, and listen to the 
scolding of the marsh wren. You sit and watch, muse 
and think; a spirit softly permeates the air which 
carries you from the materialism of the world to the 
realm of empyreal phantasy and contemplation. And 
as you tarry on the beach of that placid lake, you 
awaken to a conception of life, all the nobler and purer, 
and to an appreciation of animate and inanimate 
things hitherto unrevealed. The leaves above your 
head, the smooth pebbles at your feet, the live creatures 
about you, yes, nature in all her varied and wondrous 
aspects, tells the story that "God is seen in the star, 
in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and in the clod. ,, 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 73 

BLUE JAYS. 

In late autumn on a gray November day when the 
trees are bending like tortured wraiths before the 
strong wind, what sounds can be more in keeping with 
the tumultuous uproar than the clamorous calls of the 
blue jays? While other birds are seeking the shelter of 
deep woods, they seem to delight in screeching their 
shrill cries from the isolated trees of the open woods 
and fields. Swaying tree tops, creaking branches, and 
the rustle of wind-driven leaves — mere expression of 
the storm's fury — do not dampen their spirit. Instead 
one hears their high-pitched notes above the roar of 
the warring forces. And at this time, their notes are 
not displeasing, for they seem to be a part of th* 
orchestral accompaniment of the storm. 

On another day they are seen, when the bleak 
December landscape has been whitened by the first 
snow of winter. What an attractive picture they 
make! A simple winter scene, a study in gray, blue, 
and white, in which the jays introduce the element 
of life. A minute later, the whole aspect of the scene 
is changed for the jays have taken a few acorns from 
the snowy earth and have flown into the oaks, where 
they are rapidly ripping them open. 

See how cleverly the jay works ! His strong toes 
hold the acorn securely against the hard branch. With 
his stiff bill, he makes the incision, tearing away a 
full-length strip of the nut. The rest is easy enough, 
hammering, shredding, eating, he continues till his 



74 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

appetite for nutty food is gratified. Occasionally, an 
acorn slips from him, but he never takes the pains 
to look for it. 

Because the jay is with us the year round, we are 
so accustomed to his piercing cries that we seldom 
listen for the clear whistled notes ringing from the 
bare trees on a cold snappy morning. One can scarcely 
call these varied whistles musical, and yet he some- 
times produces a low minor note that has in it the 
sweetness of a Scottish fife. Again, he gives a long 
squeaky cry like that of a hawk. But most familiar 
are his rasping calls and noisy jibbering, especially in 
autumn, when he is joined by others of his tribe. 
During the breeding and moulting seasons, he has 
little to say, only an occasional scream escapes him 
as he sallies forth on a pillaging tour, puncturing the 
eggs and destroying the young of other birds. 

Because of his villainous traits of character it is 
hard to say much of the blue jay that is commendable ; 
unless it be the one virtuous trait he has of burying 
seeds and nuts. He is a forester of no mean reputa- 
tion. 

Because of his meddlesome and tantalizing actions 
the jay is very unpopular in bird society. When he ap- 
proaches a tree in which other birds have congregated, 
there's a sudden flurry of wings, the birds take their 
departure. The kinglets, small as they are, seem to 
fear him the least, and continue their work of insect 
hunting notwithstanding his teasing maneuvers. 

Perhaps it is because I have had the blue jay about 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 75 

me all my life that I have seen so much in him to 
admire. I like his fearlessness. He is not a coward, 
and will risk his own life to save his family. A vivid 
illustration of this fact came under my observation 
last spring. A pair of blue jays had built their nest 
in an oak very near the porch. One day when I wished 
to photograph the three young jays that had just 
left the nest, I was greatly surprised that the parents 
should possess so much courage in what must seem 
to them the immediate face of danger. The young 
birds were put in a wire cage. I sat a few feet away, 
having attached a cord to the shutter of the kodak. 
At first they seemed a little shy of the black box-like 
object but the cries of the young fledglings brought 
them near. At first they swooped low over the cage, 
their wingbeats just escaping my head. Another cry 
or two from the young brought the mother bird to the 
cage. Then came the male, hovering low over the 
cage and dropping something into the mouth of one 
of them. As their cries continued the mother bird 
began feeding them. At first she sallied along the side 
of the cage, poking her head through the wire meshes. 
Soon she began flying boldly down and alighting on 
the top of the cage, depositing a billful of food into 
the gaping mouth though I was almost in arm's 
grasp of her. The young ones seemed equally as fear- 
less, for soon one of them sat with a confident air 
on a boy's hand while its picture was taken. 

If rightly treated the blue jays will nest in the trees 
and vines of our dooryards as readily as the robin. 



76 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

I have found their nests on the low branches of the 
hemlock, locust, oak and hickory, usually from eight to 
twenty-five feet from the ground. Sometimes a wis- 
teria vine attracts them, and again they may place 
their nest of sticks, straws, and rootlets in some hidden 
nook under the porch roof. The eggs, four to six in 
number, are either pale olive-green or a brownish 
drab, conspicuously marked with brown spots. 

It is to be regretted that a bird as beautiful as the 
blue jay should have such a bad reputation, but he 
is not as bad as he is painted. Yet we shall have to 
admit that a few jays do devour the eggs and nestlings 
of other birds, but this is thought to be only an indi- 
vidual trait and not characteristic of the whole race. 

The investigations of biologists show that the jay's 
food is about one-fourth vegetable matter and three- 
fourths animal, the vegetable food consisting of 
seeds, grains and fruits. In the spring and fall months, 
corn is his favorite food, but much of this is gleaned 
from the fields after harvest. We should not be- 
grudge the jay the grain of corn when he in turn 
takes a noxious beetle. Various kinds of berries are 
eaten throughout the year. In the summer, it's the 
fresh fruit of the grape, cherry, blackberry, and mul- 
berry. Through the fall and winter, dried fruits con- 
stitute a small per cent of his diet. I enjoyed 
watching a flock of jays, on November 19, feeding upon 
black haws. They ate the soft black pulp, dropping 
the split seeds to the ground underneath the haw. 

In the animal food of the jay, one finds that twenty 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



77 



per cent of it is beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, 
nearly all of them noxious. When grasshoppers are 
plentiful, they constitute one-fifth of his food. Where 
the gypsy moth infects the trees, the jay is known to 
eat the larvae or caterpillar. Mice, fish, snails, slugs 
and salamanders make up one per cent of his food. 
The jay is very fond of nutty food of all kinds. The 
kernels of acorns, chestnuts, beechnuts, and chinqua- 
pins form nearly one-half of his diet in early fall, and 
later in the season constitutes almost three-fourths of 
his diet. 

The jays are very common permanent residents in 
most of the states east of the Mississippi and north 
of the Carolinas. Farther south, the Florida jay, a 
slightly different species, inhabits the woods. 







BLUE JAY 



78 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

PRAIRIE HORNED LARKS. 

Almost any November day, along the seacoast, on 
s'and dunes, in open tracts of woodland, or in bare 
meadows, you may happen upon a flock of brownish 
gray birds, whose plumage matches well the colors of 
their surroundings. At first sight of their black ear- 
marks you think of them as little bobwhites, but they 
are not bobwhites but true larks, horned larks, or as 
some prefer to call them — shore larks. 

They have come from the north, the Hudson Bay 
Territory, or, perhaps, from Labrador to spend the 
winter in Ohio and other states north of thirty-five 
degrees and east of the Mississippi. In some of these 
states they will be recorded as transient visitants, re- 
maining but a few weeks in November, and in March. 

Of the true lark family, there are but two species 
found in eastern United States, the horned lark and 
the prairie horned lark. There are but slight differ- 
ences in the two species. The male horned lark is a 
brownish-gray bird, in color like the bare meadow 
over which he runs. On his dull white breast is a 
conspicuous black crescent, the sides of his head are 
marked with black, horn-shaped curves. His cheeks 
and throat are yellow, his tail is black bordered with 
white. The plumage of the female is similar to that 
of the male, only the markings are less prominent and 
more subdued. The prairie horned lark is a trifle 
smaller than the former species. It is a little over 
seven inches long. It is lighter gray in color and has 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 79 

the white markings on head and throat. This is a 
species formerly of the prairies but now of a different 
range. Where the country has been deforested, it 
began living in various stretches of country north of 
North Carolina and Tennessee. 

It is not an uncommon thing in winter to find both 
species of these birds in one flock. Large flocks of the 
prairie horned larks come to the bare fields and 
meadows in October and November, feeding upon the 
seeds, dried berries, insects and larvae in one place, 
then passing on to pastures new. 

Often when driving along a country road, a flock 
of prairie horned larks will suddenly rise from the 
roadside, then settle down again a few feet away, 
several of them often running ahead of the horses' 
hoofs, and so close to them that you fear they will 
be trampled upon. You will notice that they run and 
walk but do not hop. You will also observe how like 
the dry road in color their weathered plumage is. 
Their colors generally harmonize with the places and 
haunts where they live. This protective coloring is 
of great advantage to them as a concealment from 
the pot hunters. 

The prairie horned larks breed in the northern and 
New England states but the shore or horned larks 
go much farther northward, and build their nests of 
grasses on the ground in Newfoundland, Labradoi 
and the Hudson Bay region. Their eggs, three to 
four in number, are bluish or greenish-white, speckled 
with pale grayish brown. 



80 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



Like the English skylark, they sing as they take 
wing, yet I have heard them utter a musical chatter 
when running about in the bush-lined fence rows. Fre- 
quently in late November, flocks of larks will be feed- 
ing in clover and timothy meadows. One day long 
before I reached the field, I heard their low whistling. 
Upon my approach they suddenly took flight, a num- 
ber of them breaking forth into musical strains, like 
the tinkling notes of miniature bells. Some people 
think their songs unmusical. This is true of their 
whistled call notes, but there's a certain joyousness 
and buoyancy in their song that will cause you to lend 
a listening ear. 




BLUEBIRD 



Do you know that the bluebird is one of the great- 
est known destroyers of cutworms? 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 81 

GOLDFINCHES. 

What a dismal day ! The steel-blue sky is cold and 
clammy, revealing the grief it feels in a silent, solemn 
mist, that chills one to the bone. Not an inviting or 
cheerful scene does the landscape present today. But 
the call of the woods is upon me, and I must go, rain 
or shine. Foolish! Senseless, extravagant exposure! 
are the epithets hurled at me in decisive derision, when 
contemplating obedience to such a call. But what do 
they know of sylvan secrets who have never expe- 
rienced discomforts in getting them ? 

I follow the call to the woods beyond. How utterly 
cheerless and dead everything seems, and yet how 
much of life, waiting to be awakened in its own good 
time. A flock of dull brown-colored birds rise from 
the tall grasses as I enter the wood. They break the 
silence with their twittering notes. With them all 
goes "merry, merry as a marriage bell. ,, Over the deep, 
long grass they fly in undulating wave-like dips, rising 
and falling to irregular depths and heights as the 
waves of an unresting sea. "Per-chic-ore, per-chic-ore, 
chic, chic-ore," they call as they fly along the old rail 
fences, halting now and then in the hoary mullein 
stalks. 

In their winter plumage they look much like spar- 
rows, but they are not. Both their flight and song 
prove their identity as goldfinches. They are also 
known as yellow birds, thistle birds, and often erro- 
neously called wild canaries. The backs of the males 



82 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

are an olive brown, wings, blackish, tipped with white, 
breasts, a dull light gray. The females are much of 
the same color, only less distinctly marked. How well 
their sparrowy uniforms harmonize with their environs 
in the "sober realm of leafless trees." But the gold- 
finches are not always so modestly clad. In the summer 
the males appear in bright, canary yellow and black. 
Their breasts and backs are then pure yellow ; their 
crown caps, black ; wings, black with white tips ; tails, 
black, white underneath. The females are neatly cos- 
tumed in dull olive green, grayish brown and yellow. 
Early in the fall, after the breeding season, the males 
begin to moult, gradually changing their bright yellow 
coats to the more subdued colors of a winter wood. In 
April they appear again in brilliant breeding plumage. 
In the moulting months, their appearance is often 
misleading. Unless one knows their flight and song, 
they may at such times be taken for other species. After 
several weeks moult the male goldfinch has his entire 
plumage grayed and subdued ; the yellow feathers are 
a dull buff, the black faded, with an olive green tinge. 
So sweet, rich and rippling is the goldfinch's song 
that his peers as soloists are few. I really believe him 
to be the best singer of all his family, which is a very 
large one. Out in the wild mustard, whose blossoms 
are quite as yellow as his suit, he sings his summer- 
day song, a sweet, canary-like medley of rippling slurs 
and trills. One loses himself in the song of the singer. 
It has such a spontaneous and fascinating rhythm and 
a wild ringing quality that is exceedingly captivating. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 83 

His song possesses none of that cultivated air which 
the wild canary's seems to have. His feeding and 
flight notes in the winter season are quite joyous and 
pleasing. And when a flock of these finches go bound- 
ing over the frozen fields, twittering as they fly, one is 
made to think of the redpolls who follow in their wake, 
their song having a noted semblance. 

When the wind takes the thistledown and when the 
dandelion has formed its golden mat into a fluffy ball, 
as soft and ephemeral as a soap bubble, the goldfinches 
begin to look for nesting sites. They have waited late. 
Some birds are rearing their second brood. It is past 
Independence Day. But the goldfinches are in no 
hurry, and have waited till the days are warm and 
long, and building material is plentiful, for they are 
quite choice in their selection. Having decided upon 
a nesting place in some bush or tree, the female begins 
building the nest, collecting bits of bark, grass fibers 
and down, forming them into a compact, waterproof 
nest. She lines it with soft plant down — thistle lettuce, 
dandelion silk. It is a beautiful thing, skillfully made, 
and so well formed, as if it had grown into shape like 
the saucer of an acorn. Into this silk-lined nest, three 
bluish-white eggs are laid, another female may lay 
six in hers, the maximum number. There is no fixed 
law as to what elevation the nest should have, one 
goldfinch prefers a height of five feet, another may go 
to the extreme and place hers fifty feet from the ground 
in a well formed crotch of a tree. 

To their young growing fledglings, the goldfinches 



84 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

feed plant lice, young grasshoppers, and small seeds. 
The plants of the compositae family, seem especially 
suited to the goldfinches, they feed upon the seeds of 
the wild lettuce, thistle, dandelion, and sunflower. A 
little mustard seed is eaten also, perhaps as a relish. 
In the winter, they must subsist principally upon the 
seeds of ragweed, mullein, thistle, and other weed 
seeds whose tall, coarse stalks extend above snow 
level. 



Feed the birds in winter and they will inhabit your 
premises during the summer months, adding charm 
and cheer to the place, while cleansing the atmos- 
phere and foliage of insect pests. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 85 

BIRDS IN A DECEMBER WOODLAND. 

To most persons the woods in December appear 
cold and bare ; they see but the desolate landscape with 
its naked trees and somber colorings. The grayed and 
aged aspect overwhelms them with its emptiness, and 
little there is that appeals to them. Perhaps they 
would be quite surprised to know that a score or more 
of birds spend the winter in these uninviting wood- 
lands and that this, when the trees are stripped of 
their leafy garments, is an excellent time for bird 
study. 

By the middle of December, most of the migrant 
species will be gone and we have with us only the 
ever present permanent residents and the winter vis- 
itants. All of these, because of the kind of food they 
eat, may "be divided into three classes : 

First, the larger birds of prey, as the owls, which 
prey upon field mice, sparrows and insects. Hawks, 
and occasionally crows and buzzards, which are chiefly 
flesh-eating birds and live upon mice, birds, moths and 
caterpillars, all remain throughout the winter. 

In the second class, we may put those birds that 
get their food principally from insect life and its 
products found in the bark of trees and a small per 
cent from nuts, seeds and berries. Cocoons and beetles 
are eaten by them. They might be termed the insect- 
eating birds. To this class belong the downy and 
hairy woodpeckers, brown creepers, titmice, nuthatches 
and chickadees. 



86 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

The third class is almost wholly seed-eating birds. 
When December snows cover the bleak woodlands 
you will find them usually in flocks, flying through 
the meadows, settling down here and there, pulling 
away at the seed heads of the weeds above the snows. 
In this class are the sparrows, goldfinches, juncos and 
horned larks. 

A few residents for the winter only, are found in 
most localities. These have come down from the 
north to spend their winter in a milder climate and 
where food is more abundant. The most common of 
these winter visitors are the tree sparrows, redpolls, 
snowbuntings and golden-crowned kinglets. Except- 
ing the last mentioned, they are almost wholly seed- 
eating species. 

Not only in the selection of food have the winter 
residents adapted themselves to their environment, 
but in the selection of their homes and lodgings as 
well. The hollow trees and thickets shelter the larger 
birds while the smaller seed-eating species nestle close 
to the earth under a raised tussock or in little hollowed 
places, snugly covered with long grasses and leaves. 

A change in their plumage has also taken place. It 
has grown thicker and warmer. In many of the 
various species that winter here you will observe that 
the colors have slightly changed. They are more faded 
and subdued. The blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees 
and titmice, all of which have much gray in their 
plumage, harmonize beautifully with the dull grays of 
wood and field and the blue in winter skies. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 87 

The male goldfinches in doffing their yellow coats 
for the quiet grays and browns have the protective 
coloring adapted to the season. The snowbunting, 
sparrows and juncos in their modest attire match well 
the bleached leaves and gray tree branches. The car- 
dinal alone being the one winter resident that gives 
brilliancy to the landscape, his crimson body like a 
signal flag is seen in wood and field as you pass 
through them. 

While I am writing this the snow is falling in soft 
flakes and I can hear the sharp screeching calls of 
the/jays in the oaks, only a few rods away. They will 
help themselves to the acorns, storing a few for winter 
use. The golden-crowned kinglets are here, clearing 
up both fruit and forest trees, by freeing them of insect 
life. But if the winter should be severe and the earth 
lie blanketed under heavy snows for several months, 
most of the birds will need some help in getting their 
food supply. 

The birds of prey will take care of themselves, but 
the insect-eating class may need some help, for insects 
are scarce during the winter season. Woodpeckers, 
whose food is seventy per cent animal, will be glad 
for the bones, cartilages and waste scraps from your 
table. Chickadees and nuthatches are fond of meaty 
foods; a little suet fastened to the trees will bring 
them to your dooryard. Birds whose food is largely 
vegetable like the nutritious seeds in winter. Gold- 
finches, juncos and blue jays will enjoy the sunflower 
and flax seeds you may furnish them. It is not an 



88 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

uncommon thing in the winter season to have several 
days of sleet and snow, when the landscape is covered 
with a sheet of ice. During this time the food supply 
of the birds is practically cut off. Weed heads, shrubs, 
trees, all alike are wrapped in a thick coating of ice, 
too hard and cold for weak-billed birds to break. It is 
then that the birds need your help. A few feeding 
stations established near your town may be the means 
of saving the lives of many birds. In the country they 
will come to the barn and dooryards where they can 
be supplied with seeds, vegetable parings, bones and 
cartilage. In the towns and cities the boys and girls 
can do no greater service for humanity than by caring 
for these little feathered creatures that are so beneficial 
for preserving the balance in nature. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 89 

OTHER WINTER RESIDENTS. 

Among the common winter visitors to Rix Farm 
is the song sparrow. In a small, slender hickory near 
the roadside, which has won for itself the enviable 
name of "Song Sparrow" tree, one hears his merry 
chant each month of the year. The greater number 
of his family are in the South for the winter. He and 
a few other species have chosen to remain in the 
North. 

This winter a pair of song sparrows have been feed- 
ing on the waste food in the poultry yard. All around 
them are the English sparrows, disputing every inch 
of ground, but the brave little song sparrows are not 
the kind to order a retreat, so hunt fearlessly about 
for the small droppings of mash and vegetables. 

One can easily distinguish the song sparrow from 
his English cousins by his black and brown streaked 
breast, in the center of which is a dark spot. His back 
is a mixture of black, brown and gray checks and 
stripes. 

Not only Henry van Dyke, who wrote, 

"I'd choose the song sparrow, my dear, 

Because he'd bless me every year, 

With 'sweet, sweet, sweet, very merry cheer/ " 

but I am quite sure that every man, woman and child 
would choose, as his bird friend, this very same kind 
of sparrow because of his sweet, ecstatic song. A song 
which has in it variations as sweet and voluble as the 



90 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

strains of an exquisitely cultivated human voice. He 
sings his song as if some unseen director were com- 
manding to him — "Now high, now low, now sweet and 
slow/' and he were trying to excel himself in the ex- 
pression of each command. Forenoon, afternoon, and 
night one may hear at least a fragmentary part of this 
cheery songster's repertoire, nor is he at all particular 
as to the kind of day or to the time of year it is. 

Early in the spring, usually about the first week in 
May, the song sparrow builds her nest on the ground 
in some meadow or pasture land, sometimes it is placed 
in a low bush. Coarse grasses, rootlets, and dry leaves 
are used for the bulk of the nest, which is lined with 
hair or fine grasses. Occasionally one finds a song 
sparrow's nest built entirely of fine and coarse 
grasses. The eggs, from four to five in number, are 
thickly spotted with brown and lavender. Two and 
three broods are raised in one season. The young 
nestlings look very much like those of the house 
sparrow, and grow quite as rapidly. 

The song sparrow is a great seed eater. Almost 
two-thirds of its food consists of the seeds of dock, 
sorrel, and smartweed, and the remaining third is 
chiefly insects which are injurious to vegetation. 

Now and then a robin spends his winter here. This 
bird is so well known that he needs no introduction. 
One needs, however, to know something of his 
economic value in order to save him from the market 
hunters of the South. 

There is little doubt but that fruit-growers in cer- 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 91 

tain localities have suffered some loss from the depre- 
dations of the robins, but not enough to warrant their 
extermination. The robin prefers wild fruit always 
and only feeds upon the cultivated varieties when the 
other cannot be had. Grapes, cherries, and various 
kinds of berries are taken when he can get them, but 
so are the destructive insects. Who would be so stingy 
as to begrudge a bird a berry when at another time 
he may take from the soil the cutworm that would 
destroy the corn or clover? 

The robin's food varies with the season. He gen- 
erally takes that which he can obtain the easiest; if 
grasshoppers are plentiful he helps himself, if a cater- 
pillar crawls near him, he puts it out of the way, and 
he seems to be always ready for just another earth- 
worm or wireworm. He also feeds on various beetles 
injurious to vegetation. In fact, Prof. Beal reports 
that more than two-fifths of his entire food is insects, 
while the remainder is made up largely of small fruits 
and berries. How anyone could kill and eat a song 
bird so valuable from an economic standpoint, I do not 
understand. 

Only rarely does a bluebird winter in this section 
of the country. He is the last to leave the farm in 
December and among the first to arrive from the South 
in March. With his arrival one feels that Spring is 
very near, although it is by Time's schedule more than 
a fortnight away. 

Not long after the first arrival, one hears a pair of 
bluebirds warbling their first spring message as they 



92 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

fly through the still cheerless woodlots and lawns. 
What delicious memories they awaken ! — memories of 
spring buds and blossoms, green pastures and .still 
waters, walks in pleasant paths through grain-grown 
valleys ! Then one begins to wonder if this pair will 
stop to nest in last year's box; or whether they will 
seek the more natural and artistic house-cave in the 
old, gnarled apple tree. Or, perhaps, they may shun 
them both and prefer simpler summer quarters such 
as the weathered fence-post can give. Or they may 
even go to the woods and become the tenants in a 
former woodpecker's home. 

Where two or three broods are raised in one season 
nest building must begin early, so, as soon as a location 
is decided upon, the mother bluebird begins collecting 
and weaving the dry grasses into a nest. 

Fully three-fourths of the bluebird's food consists 
of insects and low forms of animal life. The insects 
eaten are chiefly beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. 
The vegetable food taken consists of wild fruits and 
seeds. Examinations of the stomachs of bluebirds 
made at experiment stations reveal the fact that the 
bluebird eats a great variety of wild berries, poke- 
berries, partridge berries, juniper berries, and the fruit 
of the green briar, bittersweet, sumac, and Virginia 
creeper. 

It is a rare thing for a winter wren to stay through- 
out the season in this neck o' the woods ; further south 
he is frequently seen in the clearings, and among the 
fallen logs of the woods. He is very much like the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 93 

house wren in appearance, except a trifle smaller in 
size. He likes the woods and seldom becomes sociable 
enough to call at the garden gate. 

The scolding, chattering notes of the Carolina wren 
may be heard here in winter as w r ell as in summer. 
He can always be known by the conspicuous white 
line over his eye, and by his larger size. In the woods, 
from the depths of a brush pile issues his sweet, 
rollicking song — a song that lends its exquisite charm 
to the woodland choir on a winter day. 

Usually one can count on a few more than four- 
and-twenty songbirds visiting a given region each 
winter. If to this number one adds the number of 
birds of prey, crows, owls, hawks, and eagles, the num- 
ber of land birds found in a locality may be increased 
to forty different species. Excepting one or two 
species of hawks, all of these winter birds are ben- 
eficial to the farmer and deserve his care and pro- 
tection. 



94 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

THE MOURNING DOVES. 

It is not always in April that you hear the sad love- 
song of the mourning or turtle dove. It may be on 
a clouded June morning that the pensive cooing dis- 
turbs your merriest mood ; or on a dark day in August, 
when an east wind predicts a three-day drizzle, that its 
cooing seems somewhat melancholy. The mourning 
dove arrives early in the Spring, usually about April 
1-15, and remains late in the Fall. Its song, a rather 
sad "coo-oo, coo-oo," is heard throughout the Summer 
season. 

On April 20th, I found a mourning dove's nest in 
the lowest branch of a yellow pine, not more than 
nine feet from the ground. Had not my walking 
under the tree disturbed the mother bird, causing her 
to fly from the nest, I should not have suspected that 
the few dry twigs and sticks lying crisscross on the 
branch were a bird's nest. The colors of the bird and 
nest were so like that of the twigs and needles that 
she was all but invisible. In the nest were two white 
eggs, much smaller than the eggs of the passenger 
pigeon, for which they are often taken. 

After a few visits, she became accustomed to my 
coming and never left the nest unless I pulled down 
the branch, when she would drop to the ground giving 
vent to a low muttered alarm, then scutting away to a 
safe distance, she would fly into a tree, and return 
again to the nest. 

In two weeks the eggs were hatched. The young 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 95 

birds grew fast. In two weeks more they left home, 
the last one leaving on the fourteenth day. Young 
robins and mocking birds usually leave the nest on 
the eleventh day, but the young turtle doves require 
a little longer time to develop strength for flight. 

Soon after the last little dove left the nest, the 
mother bird began laying eggs for the second brood. 
Seldom does the turtle dove lay more than two eggs, 
but often two and even three broods are raised in a 
season. The nest is not always built in the lower 
branches of trees. You may find them in low bushes, 
in brush piles, and on the ground. I have found quite 
as many nests on the ground, as in any other place. 
One pair of doves built their nest under an elm at 
the foot of the tree trunk. Another pair collected a 
few sticks, placing them in a bare, open space in the 
woods, and there reared their young. 

Few land birds have as beautiful babies as the 
mourning doves. When a week old, their backs are 
uniformly and narrowly streaked in black and white. 
What a soft, silvery look they have at this time ! Their 
appearance is quite in keeping with the beauty of 
the lichens that grow so near them. When two weeks 
old, they begin to show strong resemblances to their 
parents, and are ready to try the world, outside the 
nest, with them. 

What healthy vegetarians the doves are ! Their 
food is almost exclusively vegetable matter. Many of 
the troublesome weeds in waste fields and meadows 
furnish seeds for them. Wood sorrel, barn grass and 



$6 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

prairie grass seeds are eaten in large quantities. In 
the stomach of one dove, more than 7,000 seeds of 
wood sorrel (oxalis stricta) have been found. I do 
not know of any bird that is a better exterminator of 
that prolific weed than the mourning dove. 

So often mourning doves are mistaken for passenger 
pigeons, which are now rarely seen at all in this 
country, although at one time they w r ere very 
numerous. Their nesting colonies in the northern 
woods numbered into the thousands. It is possible 
that there are a few isolated pairs of pigeons in north- 
ern Michigan and Wisconsin. Mourning doves can 
readily be distinguished from the passenger pigeons by 
their size. They are about a foot long, whereas the 
pigeons measure nearly seventeen inches. Another 
marked difference is that the pigeon's back is a grayish 
blue, the dove's a grayish brown. The males of both 
doves and pigeons have the iridescence on the sides 
of the neck. The nests are much alike, mere platforms 
of rough sticks. The pigeon arranges her twigs in 
a tree, preferably near streams and lakes, while the 
dove is more likely to lay her irregular wreath of 
sticks on the ground. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 97 

BROWN THRASHERS IN HAWTHORNS. 

When buckeye leaves begin to spread their fingers 
in the April woods, you may look for the brown 
thrasher (Harporhynchus rufus) out nest hunting. 
He and his mate are scurrying about the hawthorns, 
bent on finding the most desirable place for the laying 
of their rude, log house, in which to rear their young. 

In pasture fields and open woods in Ohio, Indiana 
and Michigan the abundant growth of hawthorns 
offers many birds desirable nesting sites. That brown 
thrashers have a decided preference for these low 
shrubs is shown by the large number of nests that 
are found in them. In one open thicket in northern 
Ohio, I found sixteen nests of brown thrashers, within 
a radius of twenty rods. Ten of these nests were built 
in the common cockspur thorn (Crataegus crusgalli). 
These shrubs never grow very tall, usually from six to 
ten feet high, and when isolated as in fields and groves 
will grow as symmetrical as a cedar. In May, when 
the nests for the first brood have been built, the cock- 
spur has a thickly-set blanket of dark green, glossy 
leaves. The nests are placed from four to eight feet 
from the ground, and from two to four feet within the 
thick, leafy dome. You might walk past a cockspur 
thorn every day and not suspect that it held a 
thrasher's nest. 

Only by parting the branches can the nest be ex- 
posed to view ; you can get down on your knees and 
push yourself up through the framework of thorny 



98 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

twigs and branches. In either case, you must expect 
to leave some blood to mark the tragic performance. 
The thrashers sleep in these spiny bushes without 
fear of attack from nocturnal foes. Can you think 
of an owl trying to wedge his bulky form through 
such a labyrinth of spines? 

Other thrasher nests were found in Crataegus 
tomentosa, C. mollis and in C. margaretta. While to 
the casual passer-by these hawthorns appear to be of 
one species, yet in blossom and fruit they show great 
differences. In autumn, when the crimson and scarlet 
berries are ripe, the kinds are readily distinguished. 
C. mollis, with the largest white blossoms, blooms a 
fortnight earlier than the others, and its large berries 
are the first to turn scarlet in autumn. Fewer nests of 
thrashers were found in this species, the open branch- 
ing of the tree affording less protection. 

The dark red berries of C. tomentosa do not tempt 
the appetites of the thrashers, perhaps because they 
are too insipid ; or, like ourselves, the birds may be 
having too much of the same diet in season. In C. 
margaretta you are likely to find quite as many nests 
as in the cockspurs. The gray spines and thick branch- 
ing offer protective coloring for the nest and an armor 
against attack. The nests in these trees were built in 
much the same way as in the cockspurs, always placed 
where a dozen or more small branches crossed and 
recrossed, making it difficult to tell the nest, a wreath 
of twigs, from the real branches of the shrub. Do not 
expect the thrasher to construct a nice, downy nest. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 99 

On a mere platform of dry sticks he lays some weed 
stalks and then finishes with a simple lining of root- 
lets and weed straws. In one nest a few cornstalks 
and dry, leathery leaves were introduced into the 
foundation. 

This protective selection for nesting is a decided 
advantage to the thrasher, for both his size and color 
would easily betray him to his enemies. He measures 
nearly a foot in length. His cinnamon brown or rufous 
back and tail, and light breast heavily streaked on the 
sides with black, make him a conspicuous object. 

A week after the nests were built, the eggs were 
laid. Most bird books say that the thrasher lays from 
three to six eggs; I have oftener found three or four 
than any other number. The eggs are grayish-white, 
and heavily dusted with cinnamon brown, just a repe- 
tition of color from the bird's back and breast. 

The first broods hatched in May and in early June. 
The young thrashers grew rapidly and left their nest 
from twelve to fourteen days after they were hatched. 
What pleasure it was to watch them ! One morning 
my waiting was rewarded by hearing two of the young 
thrashers, six weeks old, practising their first song. 
It was so unlike the song of the parent birds that I 
could scarcely believe that they were thrashers sing- 
ing. The trills lacked the volume and variations of the 
older birds' song, and were devoid of all passion ; yet 
an unmistakable joyousness characterized each at- 
tempt. The weak trills seemed to increase in strength 
and range with repetition. 



100 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

On another June morning, on approaching a nestful 
of young birds but a day old, I was surprised at the 
fight put up by the mother bird in defense of her 
young. She flew back to a branch a few inches from 
the nest and refused to leave. As I parted the branches 
to get a better view of them, she flapped her wings, 
twitched her tail excitedly, then threw out a desperate 
and alarming volley of "tsips" and hisses. Before 
this time, when brooding, she did not seem to mind 
my visits, and never left the nest, except when I parted 
the branches. 

Not wishing to prolong her anxiety I crawled under 
the hawthorn, where I could watch the parent bird 
feed the young with beetles and grasshoppers. Often 
no more than a ten-minute interval elapsed between 
meals. I did not count the number of insects dropped 
into the wide-open mouths. At length they seemed 
satisfied, and the mother bird resumed her place 
on the nest. 

Most bird lovers pay their respects to the thrasher's 
singing. He is a big bird with a big voice, and seems 
to be glad to let you judge for yourself its great range 
and melody. Beginning in early April he will give 
you such a magnificent concert that other bird notes 
seem weak in comparison. No matter how many 
other birds are singing, his song is in the ascendant — 
strong, expressive, passionate. What a concord of 
sweet sounds ! Try counting the variations, note with 
what ease the song is executed. You have his orders : 
"I am singing, will you attend ?" 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 101 

In some localities of the South the brown thrasher 
is called mavis ; in others, French mocking birds, sandy 
thrush, and red thrush. Farther north he is more 
commonly called brown thrush, brown mocking bird 
and brown thrasher. Since he is neither a thrush nor 
a mocker the name "brown thrasher" is best suited to 
him. It is one by which he is known in various parts 
of the country. 

More than 60 per cent of the thrasher's food is 
insects — beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars. Thirty 
per cent of his insect diet consists of injurious beetles, 
many of which infest our crops. What a valuable 
asset a colony of thrashers is to the farmer! Within 
the last score of years, with the taking away of the 
old rail fences, hawthorns have been cleared from 
fields and pasture lands. In places thrashers have 
been driven to the thicket and woods, but how much 
longer will they find protection there? Can we not 
afford to encourage the growth of hawthorns in the 
fence-rows as nesting places for them? 




THE BROWN THRASHER 



103 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

THE SONG OF THE WHIPPOORWILL. 

Late in April on a balmy night, sweet with the 
fragrance of budding leaf and blossom when the moon 
sheds its pale beams on the soft growing things, 
suddenly the great silence is broken by the clear ring- 
ing notes of the whippoorwill. 

"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill," come the calls 
nearer and clearer, as if he were speaking directly to 
you. What precious memories of other April nights 
his calls bring back ! Out of the darkness comes the 
call that makes one forget the wintry blasts and sets 
the senses agoing. We hear the low twitter of an- 
other bird. We inhale the sweet perfume of the 
blossoming wild cherry and plum. Our appetites call 
for watercress and sassafras. 

This first song of the whippoorwill calls me next day 
into the woods, glorious with the beauty of flower and 
tree, where the brown and gray of winter are bright- 
ened by the blue and gold of Springtime. Spring beau- 
ties and anemones, like great starry snowflakes, whiten 
the edges of the dry leaf curls. Violets, "colored with 
Heaven's own blue, ,, lift their sweet faces above the 
bleached grass blades. Here and there, in the open, 
under the trees, and beside the burnt and blackened 
places, masses of sweet Williams parade their showy 
blossoms. Walk where I will, surprise awaits me. 
Under the leaves, cast aside by my foot, I pick up a 
bishopVcap ; and a few steps more brings me to jack- 
in-the-pulpit. Trilliums nod their pure white blossoms 
as I pass. 




A Killdcer's Nest. 



A Song Sparrow's Nest. 




Bank Swallow's Nest. 




"*r . 



^: \ 






iW' 







^ Robin s Nest. A Chipping Sparrow's Nest. 




A Bank Swallow's Nest in a Stone Culvert. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 105 

Down by the little run which has made serpentine 
curves in the moist, black earth, the dogtooth violet and 
yellow adder's tongue shake their delicate blossom- 
heads. Marsh-marigolds and buttercups, like concen- 
trated drops of sunlight, illumine the dark marrowy 
places. Toothworts are in full bloom. Bellworts in 
bud, and at the foot of the low dipping hill an orchis 
blooms. Ten years ago in this very same woods, the 
yellow lady's slipper or moccasin flower grew pro- 
fusely, now I rarely find one. Those spared by the 
wasteful hands of children, were uprooted or trampled 
to death by the hungry cattle that browsed in the 
woods. 

I pass the w r ild ginger, hastening on to the hills 
where the moss pinks grow, but my walk is suddenly 
intercepted by a dark bird floundering about, almost 
under my feet. It flies to an old dead tree, stretching 
itself on a large branch. So much does it look like 
the lichen-covered knots of the branch that it is diffi- 
cult to discern what is bird and what is tree. It is the 
male whippoorwill, I have seen it before. 

For an hour or more, I stand under that half-rotten 
oak, waiting for the bird to make some movement or 
fly away. At length, tired of waiting," child-like, I 
throw a stick, or a piece of bark at him. Noiselessly, he 
flies to another bare, broken tree a few rods away, 
where he again becomes a part of the tree itself. In 
his plumage are the colors of the lichen-covered tree 
trunk, for his back is mottled with dull brown, gray 
and white, and heavily streaked with black. The 



106 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

upper part of his dusky colored breast is broken by a 
white stripe. What wonderful protective coloring 
When down on the ground the bits of bark, twigs, and 
dry leaves are like the colors of his back. 

With such protective coloring as a safeguard, it is 
not surprising that his mate does not take the trouble 
to make a nest, but lays her eggs on the ground, on 
the dry leaves under a tree, or near old logs and stumps. 
Neither man nor beast is likely to see her as she sits 
there in the woods. Should you, in a tramp through 
the woods, accidentally stumble upon her, she will 
flounder along, and if you follow her, you are lured 
from the nest. When she has drawn you away a safe 
distance, she flies into a tree. 

While one sees but little of the whippoorwill during 
the daytime, he is active enough at nightfall. From 
some dark post he sweeps through the yard or over 
the garden, catching the flies, moths and beetles that 
cross his path. The long bristles fringing the sides 
of his mouth serve as a splendid net for the big fly- 
trap mouth. 

"A fair day to-morrow, the whippoorwill is singing." 
How often have you heard this prediction from the 
tired and anxious farmer, sitting on his low porch 
watching the setting sun slip down behind the dark 
hills. The west is black and threatening, but this does 
not matter to him. The whippoorwill is calling and 
the rain-clouds will soon be cleared away. Such faith 
does the honest old man have in this weather prophet 
that it matters not if the chief of the weather bureau 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 107 

does forecast otherwise, the whippoorwill knows; he 
is weatherwise, and the morrow will be fair. 

A few people, mostly the city-born, dislike to hear 
the calls of the whippoorwill and withdraw themselves 
from regions inhabited by them. To them, the calls 
are as fearful echoes of a dark and distant wood, por- 
tentous of evil. Every call fills them with an un- 
controllable fear, and as the night grows darker the 
repeated "whippoorwills" fill their hearts with a lone- 
liness that is weird and gruesome. 

But such feelings come only to those who have 
come into an evil heritage handed down to them by 
old traditions and by the lips of the superstitious. 

The country-born look forward to the return of the 
whippoorwill as eagerly and as happily as they do for 
the coming of the first robin of the spring. And what 
woodland calls have a wilder, choppier ring than the 
clear, rapid whippoorwill chorus at eventide? One 
hears the calls long after the blackness has shut out 
the day, and the last good-night call puts the simple, 
country folk to bed. "Good weather to-morrow," the 
whippoorwill is calling. 



108 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

OUT-OF-DOORS, MAY 2ND. 

How old and tame everything indoors seems ! So 
frayed and faded do the things within appear that 
their ugliness stands out in coarse contrast to the 
fresh green grass just outside the open window. On 
a May morning like this, one is not content with work 
indoors but every sense seeks employment with things 
without. Naturally a man wants to swing his fish- 
pole over his shoulder and start for the nearest creek 
or river, where he dotes not so much on the catch he 
may get as on the pleasure he receives from the lazy, 
carefree mood that comes with the sun bath as he sits 
on the broad flat stone at the river's edge. 

Likewise I am seized with the fever of unrest, but 
I know its cure can be found in the walk to the river 
road, less than a mile away. The blue jays in the 
great oaks near the window bid me go and I start. 
A flicker is making the telegraph pole serve as a key- 
board. Pecking "tup, tup, teerup," the message is 
sent. He listens, far away a faint "tup, tup, teerup" 
is flashed back on the wireless air as a response from 
his mate. The saucy maneuver of a red-headed wood- 
pecker prevents his sending another, and hastens his 
flight across the broad, level lawn. In the trees along 
the street a pair of Baltimore orioles are taking new- 
born insects from the maple keys. Robins are every- 
where, caroling in the trees, flying to the ground, hop- 
ping across newly made garden beds, and halting here 
and there to pull out some hidden earthworm. There's 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 109 

a mother robin in her nest above the window and a 
father robin is here in the road, taking a dust bath. 

I pass a cockspur thorn standing near the roadside. 
A flash of light, reddish brown from within reveals a 
secret. I make her secret mine. Parting the branches 
and working my way in, I find the thrasher's nest of 
twigs and straws roughly built where the spiny 
branches start from the trunk. In it are two whitish 
eggs, thickly brown spotted on the larger end. To- 
morrow there will be three eggs in it, and perhaps, 
the next day, four. A cowbird's low squeaky whistle 
is heard as it skulks across the pasture field. Down 
the road are the blackbirds, headed for the river, too. 
I love their quirking whistle, so unlike the notes of 
other birds. From every thicket, from every tree 
clump, I hear the song sparrow's, "tweet, tweet, tweet." 
When there's so much music in the air, who would 
stay indoors? 

To the river I am drawn, its banks are overgrown 
with shrubby growths; willows, wild cherries, and 
hawthorns send their branches to the water's edge, 
making ideal summer retreats for the birds. A flock 
of j uncos skip along in the thick undergrowth, leaving 
a trail of music in their w r ake. The river is quiet and 
yellow-brown with drift. The clayey pigment seems 
only to intensify the beauty of coloring for the reflected 
trees and shrubs are wonderfully picturesque— a ma- 
rine scene in rich sepia tints. 

Nature's attractions are alluring so on I walk to 
greet new arrivals. Yellow warblers, a dozen or more, 



110 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

flit about in the yellow-green bushes. Their little 
bodies blend so harmoniously with the new leaves 
that it is hard to follow them. Almost from my very 
feet flies the little hairbird. Her hair nest with its 
little brown speckled eggs is neatly tucked away under 
the higher grass blades on the ground. As I shuffle 
down the river's bank, a spotted sandpiper flies up 
the river. A kingfisher crosses the stream, hesitating 
above it, where a fish in jumping up has thrown the 
water into circular ripples. 

The charming songs of the mocking birds take me 
from the river's bank to the woods across the road. 
Into the grassy swamp I plunge just in time to see a 
pair of them fly to the wooded hollow beyond. Surely 
this is a bird's Paradise ! Tall trees, dense shrubs, 
thickets, swampy ravines, open grassy plots, and run- 
ning water are features of a wood that appeal to the 
birds. For in it, food, drink and protection, the very 
necessities, are had. 

I have often heard the catbird's song, but there 
always seemed to be in it some note that I had not 
heard before, so I was greatly pleased to hear two 
of them sing their songs over and over till I could 
say it after them — "Trr, who, whuet, tow whees, erit, 
torit, toreet, toreet, trr, turwheet," followed by a vol- 
ley of hisses and mews. It is very difficult to put a 
bird's song into words, and doubtless the catbird's 
song may be interpreted differently by each new audi- 
tor. Wisely, the catbird often selects a tree, in which 
the color of the branches matches the dark slaty plum- 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 111 

age of his body. His tail drops downward, giving 
his whole form a cat-like curve. In this position he 
utters a kind of kittenish hiss or mew every few 
minutes. Only a few feet from him, high up in the 
shag bark hickory, the towhee bunting or chewink is 
singing, "towhee, towhee, ee, ee, ee." Few birds sing 
with as much vigor as the towhee. With spreadout 
tail, he flies to a heap of dead limbs near by and con- 
tinues to sing his one song over and over again. 

In the next hour other birds' voices are heard in 
this May morning concert. A cardinal calls "purty, 
purty," then a patch of red falls like a crimson leaf 
from the tree top and drops into the thick bushes 
below. A wren trills in an old broken down apple- 
tree, field sparrows sing, "cher we, dee, dee/' A pair 
of hairbirds twitter their love ditty, and the yellow 
warblers keep up an incessant "tsee, tsee." A pair of 
bluebirds fly in and out of an old woodpecker hole in 
a hollow tree, daring a few call notes, suggestions of 
the song they might sing. From a tree on the hill- 
side a tufted titmouse calls lonesomely "peto, peto." 
Bank swallows skim low over a grassy pool and from 
apparently far away comes the plaintive "coo, coo, oo" 
of the turtle dove which may be but a few rods dis- 
tant. Field and vesper sparrows are trilling and call- 
ing, mate answering mate. 

But above the songs of all others, I hear the car- 
dinal's and brown thrasher's magnificent performances. 
They are certainly stars in grand opera. In strength 
and purity of tone, they have few equals. Surpassed, 



112 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

perhaps, only by the mocking bird who because of his 
great power of imitation can sing as well and better 
than the various birds he mocks. 

But one sense has quite overpowered the others. 
So lost am I in listening to this spring concert, that 
little notice is taken of the stage effects. I awake to 
an admiration of the scenery — a blossoming, budding 
wood. Like Ben Greet players, birds like a woodland 
grove, ideal in its appointments. The landscape this 
morning furnishes just such features in its staging. 
In some places, the hard black lines are softened by 
a shimmer of silvery gray or white leafage. In an- 
other place, rich masses of yellow-green fill the dark 
intervals of space. Soft maples are covered with a 
lacy, pale yellow drapery, which on nearer approach, 
resolves itself into fine yellow threads from which 
are suspended dainty little blossom bells. On some of 
the maples small crinkley tufts of leaves are ready 
to expand under the warm sunshine. In pretty con- 
trast to them are the red maples who have built their 
spring fires and are all aglow with blazing keys and 
young garnet leaves. How the cottonw r oods glitter; 
their leaves, small, sleek, shining, throw their reflec- 
tions like little pendant mirrors with each stir of the 
wind. Even the elms are dressed as for a May day 
festival. Each branch, no longer bare, is showing its 
fine, filmy blossoms — thousands of little pocket-like 
bags hanging from as many yellow threads. The 
Judas tree or red bud is most attractive and fills a 
dark gap in the ravine with a rare rosiness of bios- 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 113 

soms. The terminal branches of a few hickories have 
large oval buds, almost creamy white, but the oaks 
are still naked as in winter and intrude their blackness 
into the shimmering green forest. Horse chestnuts 
being the first to put on spring attire, are in full leaf 
and blossom. Already their thick, green foliage sug- 
gests the shade and coolness of midsummer. 

The beauty of the setting is not altogether over- 
head. Underfoot new life and loveliness presents it- 
self at every step. Like great soft flakes of newly 
fallen snow, spring beauties and anemones scatter their 
whiteness on the green and brown earth. The hill- 
side has its wealth of dandelion gold, which still lies 
near the surface in great, yellow patches. In the 
shade, dow T n among the leaves and grasses, and in the 
most unexpected places, violets lift their modest heads, 
a little bluer than the sky above them. 

The woods are full of promise. Almost everywhere 
the green earth shows numberless buds ready to break 
into blossom. In another fortnight the trees will be 
fully draped in the tender green of springtime. And 
how immaculately clean and fresh the woodland is 
today: its charm so sweet and pure that the slightest 
suggestion of the unnatural is distasteful. Anything 
dragged into it looks coarse and ugly, and mars the 
beauty of the immediate environment. How unsight- 
ly are the scraps of paper blown into the weeds, fring- 
ing the ravine ! And how one old tin can detracts 
from the loveliness of the little rivulet into which it 
has been thrown. 



114 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

As I let my eyes rest on the various tints and 
shades so harmoniously blended in the growing leaves 
of the trees that form the walls of this woodland tem- 
ple above which the blue sky forms an airy canopy, 
I am made to think of how hard and coarse-looking 
are the walls of the place we call a home. No atmos- 
phere to soften the hardness, no fine lacy network of 
branches and leaves to make you wonder what they 
contain, no intricate, hidden places to arouse your in- 
terest in the unknown. No, much of the decoration 
within our homes is bad and bold and barbarous. But 
the awakening is at hand. Already the best decorators 
and artists are introducing into their art natural ef- 
fects. The New York Grand R. R. Terminal has a 
starlit sky for its roof. Some day art will evolve a 
process by which the place we call home may be trans- 
formed into a veritable bit of out-of-doors. 

When we come into a realization of the fact that no 
rug from the Orient, ever so elegant, can compare 
with a grassy carpet of wood or field, or a woodland 
pasture, luxuriant with the blossoms of springtime or 
the ripened leaves of an autumn day; and that wall 
tapestry however expensive does not nearly approach 
the beauty of the foliage, trees and shrubs, it is then 
that we shall come into a right appreciation of Nature 
and natural effects. When we come to know how per- 
fectly sane and pure Nature is in all her moods, we 
shall stand in awe of our own baseness and be ap- 
palled at the distorted notions we have acquired of 
what we believe to be right living. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 115 

THE BIRDS' MAY FESTIVAL. 

All through the changeful March and showery 
April the birds were arriving. On the trains of wind 
and rain and sleet they came. Often many miles of 
desert air had to be covered to find food and shelter. 
The love-making days came and went, and in sun 
and shade and shower the home-making weeks began. 

No matter if the cold days, lingering, do chill the lap 
of spring, often delaying the forming of the scenic 
curtains, the festival is sure to be in May. Unless 
you live far north of the forty-ninth parallel, the chief 
performers will arrive before the last old-moon nights 
of the month have darkened. 

A Birds' Festival to which I was a listener on a 
twenty-first of May, is still "a thing of beauty" and 
will remain "a joy forever." It was early in the morn- 
ing; the eastern horizon lay bathed in its first wash 
of gray violet and pale vermilion. To the nortrrward, 
a great flame of deep rose, softly diffused into pale 
yellows and tender greens, gave evidence of a coming 
sun. The dandelions in the spring meadows and along 
the rough roadsides had turned their yellow mats of 
gold into milky-white full moons of transparent down. 
These little gossamer planets, pushed above the com- 
mon level, gave a downy softness to earth as the 
filmy flecks of vapor repeated the favor in the blue 
dome above. Much of the cold grayness of the old 
rail fence had been lost beneath the clambering black- 
berry vines, whose white blossoms in green setting 



116 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

brought to mind a picture of a belated May snowfall. 
The crane's-bill generously warmed the sheltered 
nooks and grassy plots, while violets in deep blues and 
kingly purples brightened the luxuriant green aisles. 

There was no lack of scenery, no fear of monotony, 
for almost every moment the scenes were changed. 
To the north the woods were still more yellow than 
green, in which the hickories and red oaks gave most 
of the spring color to the landscape. The buckeye, the 
maples, and the lonely ashes with their brown tresses 
filling the sky spaces, were approaching the myrtle 
green of midsummer, while the slender hickory sap- 
lings in stencils of sap green and fleshy scarlet im- 
parted cheerful splashes of color. In another part of 
the woods were elms, their graceful flaring tops 
painted as dark green plumes against the blue sky, 
while little green leaves covered the gray trunks with 
tender pity. Among the elms one white oak stood, 
attractively arrayed in pink-and-white apples, touch- 
ing the opening, rose-velvet leaves with new beauty. 

A soft, green mat of fresh grasses warmed by scat- 
tered bits of brown, yellow, and umber, lay on the 
floor of the temple. Mosses, algae and lichens had 
veiled "with hushed softness" the cold, bare places of 
weathered stumps and somber logs. 

The Festival had begun in the last watch of the 
night, for the hairbirds were already entertaining in 
the upper galleries of the trees with their rapid, stac- 
cato notes and must have borne off the prize for re- 
markable speed. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 117 

The cardinal grossbeak, one of the chief perform- 
ers, made a dashing picture in his uniform of bright 
cardinal with the green leaf draperies in the back- 
ground. His first exercise was to give us his de- 
licious, pleading, love solo, "purty, purty." As a re- 
sponse to his mate's hearty encore, he appeared again, 
to the delight of all, this time responding with "such 
harmonious madness," that we listen even now to the 
vigorous call of "wy cheer." Another silent, but all 
the more enthusiastic encore, and out he came again, 
only to give a few closing "tsips," before retiring be- 
hind the screen of elms. 

An interval of restful silence followed — a few mo- 
ments for thoughtful appreciation — when suddenly, a 
melodious choir of sweet male voices sang to me. 
They had been heard before. Was not their music 
sweeter each time they sang? Such bursts of merry 
chants, such joyous trills, such a concord of sweet 
sounds ! Was I not listening to Nature's sublimest 
symphony? And who were these little, modest, unat- 
tractive fellows in quiet, unobtrusive checks and stripes 
of brown, grey, white and black, who by their divine 
melody had brought Paradise to earth? All were 
members of the sparrow family. There were song, 
tree and field sparrows. Such famous singers deserve 
a word of praise. Who has not heard the song spar- 
row's sweet, rippling chant and not felt a thrill of 
joy, a deeper faith, an inspiration to better living? 
Of all the songsters, to me his song is the best. What 
a patient, brave little fellow he is. From January to 



118 OUR DOOR YARD FRIENDS 

December he is engaged. No season of rest for him. 
Hear him in the bleak woods on a mild winter day, or 
after a sultry thunderstorm on an August afternoon, 
or when the blue lights have veiled the November 
woodlands. 

The tree sparrow is more chary of his song. It is 
modest, soft and sweet. There is something captivat- 
ing about the song of the field sparrow; it is so dreamy 
and plaintive. 

The next performer to make his appearance, was 
less quiet and modest in manner. Sounds of vigorous 
shuffling on the curled leaf-mats behind the screen of 
brush heaps preceded his song. At last, from a stage 
of badly charred old logs, he began his rehearsal; he 
struck the chord, he ran the scale. This he did again 
and again. But it bears repetition, quite unlike the 
monotonous practice of the platform soloist. Towhee 
bunting, as he is called by all lovers of woodland tem- 
ples, was appropriately clad in colors to suit his 
environment. His black coat and cravat, chestnut- 
brown and dusky white vest, harmonized with the 
places he most frequented; the burnt stumps, the 
brown rotten logs, and the gray-black brush-piles. 

While choristers were singing, the tree swallows, 
making rapid gyrations far above me, filled the air 
with gossip. Dark shadows fell upon us. The bass 
performers had come. A troop of great black fellows 
greeted us with their harsh, rasping "caws." Their 
performance, far from being musical, was followed by 
shrill cries of the change-of-weather prophets, calling 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 119 

out sharply in their rapid flight high up through the 
blue sky. The leader, very particular that their names 
be not misunderstood, announced clearly and rapidly 
"killdeer, killdeer." 

But new emotions were to be felt for all of a sud- 
den a weird, plaintive voice sang feelingly, "pewee-ee, 
pewee." His note of sadness touched us the more as 
he shifted from his concealed position to the headless 
form of an old oak. Here the subdued colors of his 
coat and crested cap became a part of the ragged 
strips of bark that dangled from its trunk. As if to 
check the ominous forebodings into which the Festi- 
val had lapsed, the cheery goldfinches came out in 
summer garbs of bright shining yellow and black, and 
lent a pretty contrast to their surroundings. From 
flower garden to thistle stalk, from thistle stalk to open 
woodlands, their wild, ringing notes were heard. You 
soar with them in flights of ecstacy through the fresh, 
free air. Was all this music wasted on earth and sky? 
Surely not. Gladly would I have called them back, 
but their "per-chic-o-re" grew fainter as they undu- 
lated across the green meadow. 

As the sun grew warmer and soared higher, send- 
ing great waves of heat into the vast ocean of air, 
the earth floor grew warm. Sitting on a log under 
the shelter of a beautiful red maple, I listened to the 
heralds of spring — the bluebirds and robins. For 
eighty successive days they had carried their rich, 
mellow warbles from orchard and meadow to grove 
and woodland. Have you ever thought what spring 
would be without these; songster? Ss there anything 



120 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

in the world that brings to you what the bluebird's 
warble does from some cheerless tree? 

Nor were all the exercises of the Festival vocal. 
Other performers with well-tuned instruments played 
the accompaniments to many a solo, duet and chorus. 
The old trees made excellent drums for the downy, 
hairy and red-headed woodpeckers. Their rapid tat- 
toos had been heard weeks before the Festival. Often, 
the yellow hammer, the great brown fellow that he is, 
plays well with this woodpecker band. Faintly, 
sweetly, as the dying echoes of a last chord, came the 
flute-like notes of a little player in gray. I drew near- 
er the place from which the sound came. I held my 
breath. Again I heard the clear whistled notes, "peto, 
peto." Downward he came silently. It was our old 
friend, tufted titmouse. 

It was eight o'clock by the sun. Twenty different 
performers had sung, drummed and whistled. They 
had sung the old songs, beat the old drums, whistled 
the old tunes, but to me there came a strange song, 
a fresh rhythm, a new life. 

As I was about to leave the sacred retreat, I was 
held by the music of a grand oratorio. Never did men 
sing like these denizens of the forest. Would that we 
could sound the notes that are only for the inward 
ear! We then should hear the phoebe's call, the hair- 
bird's twitter, the field sparrow's trill, the bluebird's 
warble, the brown thrasher's medley, the song spar- 
row's chant, the cardinal's whistle, the robin's song, 
the jay's squall, the nuthatch's "yank," the woodpeck- 
er's "quirk," and the towhee's "chewink." 




The President of a Junior Audubon Club. 




The House Wren built her nest in the clothes pin bag. 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 121 

PHOEBES. 

A phoebe came to our porch one day in May. Above 
the window on the projecting ledge she began her 
housebuilding. Day after day she toiled. Upon the 
clay foundation she placed rootlets, weed straws, a 
little moss, and some dried grasses. The upper part 
of the nest was finished with wool, hair, and fine blades 
of grass, lined with wool and hair. It took only a 
few days to complete the nest, and in less than a week, 
four small white eggs were in it. The male would fly 
back and forth with the mother bird but did not, so 
far as I could see, assist much with the nest building. 
He would sing and swing on the hanging basket, keep- 
ing a sharp lookout for intruders. The birds did not 
mind my standing in the doorway watching them, but 
no sooner did I move one step in the direction of the 
nest, than they would fly away, always talking and 
scolding excitedly in short, saucy "phoebes." When dis- 
turbed, they seldom flew further than five yards aw r ay 
from the nest, and usually to the nearest cedar, whence 
they could plainly observe the maneuvers of an in- 
truder. 

While the mother was sitting, the male always re- 
mained very near. At times his vigorous "phoebe" 
notes grew a bit monotonous, and you wished that he 
might cease from singing a song that had so little 
variation to it. 

In little less than a fortnight, from the four little 
eggs came four naked bird youngsters, of whom, how- 



122 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

ever, only two remained alive. The cause of the death 
of the others was at once apparent. Above, below, 
inside and outside, the nest swarmed with small black 
lice. This wool-hair-and-hay nest had served as an 
excellent incubator for the parasites and the weaker 
youngsters had been overcome by the vermin. The 
parents had made the mistake of taking their materials 
from too near the hen house. The two surviving and 
stronger phoebes grew rapidly. Little more than a 
day before the time came for them to leave the nest, 
I took my kodak, expecting to get a shot at the two 
young survivors, but as I mounted the chair and lifted 
the kodak, out they flew. Their wings were still 
weak, but they managed to get into the cedars, free 
from danger. The empty nest was removed, and a 
brush dipped in kerosene applied to the projecting 
ledge, put an end to the vermin. Soon after 
the renovation, I noticed that Mrs. Phoebe had started 
to lay the foundation for another nest in the same 
place, but she proceeded no further than depositing a 
few small sticks and rootlets. The next day I found 
the parent birds building under the north porch, where 
they had built previous summers. They probably had 
concluded that the old building site was the best. 
The nest was constructed of the same material as the 
first. They used a generous quantity of wool and 
hair for the lining. I became rather anxious because 
of this, aware of what had happened before. Four 
eggs Avere laid and on June 24th the mother began 
hatching. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 123 

The last days of June were very warm, and each 
succeeding day grew hotter till on the 4th day of July 
the thermometer registered 112 degrees, an unusually 
high temperature, but in such a baking heat there 
was no danger of the eggs cooling. The male would 
take her place when she left, standing on the rim of 
the nest with wide-open mouth, gaping and panting 
for draughts of cool air. 

In fourteen days the eggs were hatched. On July 
7th four little lumps of flesh and blood lay where the 
day before were four white eggs. What surprised me 
most was that birds so large could be hatched from 
eggs so small. How tightly they must have been 
compressed within the little shells. On the second 
day the birdlings looked quite fuzzy and downy on 
their backs, and they even ventured to open their 
mouths. Then began the feeding of each little mouth. 
Every day they seemed to require stronger food, for 
they were getting older and bigger. A number of 
birds partly masticate the food for their young when 
they first begin to feed them. At least, Mrs. Phoebe 
seemed to do so. One day she brought a small moth, 
tore it into bits, and fed the shreds to the different 
youngsters. 

How quickly the little things were clothed ! In a 
week they had their feathers, and when eleven days 
old they were so well rounded that I concluded it was 
time to have their pictures taken. Fortunately, the 
parents were not at home while this was going on, or 
they might have objected to such a proceeding, but 



124 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

in less than a half-hour the mother bird was again 
feeding the brood. 

Each succeeding day found the phoebes a little 
stronger and a little larger, till the nest became so 
crowded that when the mother brought the food 
there was scarcely any room for her to place her feet 
upon the nest. Often, in five minutes she had made 
the round; into each mouth had gone some bit of in- 
sect food — the first course of their early breakfast. 
Then back and forth she flew, bringing food till their 
hungry cries were quieted. A spell of silence usually 
followed — an interval for the enjoyment of little morn- 
ing naps. During the last week before nest leaving 
there was much moving about and exercising the 
muscles of their wings by flapping them up and down. 
On the 20th of July, they sat on the rim of the nest, 
looking down and upon an unexplored world. The 
father and mother birds called to them to come out, 
but they drew back into the nest. The next day, when 
just three weeks old, there was an exciting time in 
the phoebe family. Four young phoebes chirped and 
twittered. The old birds called again and again, then 
followed a responsive chorus of weak chirps, a flap- 
ping of wings, and the young birds flew from the nest 
for the first time. Their destination was a pear tree 
but two rods away. Soon they made their way to 
other trees in the orchard, where the old birds con- 
tinued to feed them. 

What a blessing it was to have the phoebes about, 
for they helped to keep the porch free from flies and 



OUR DOOAY ARD FRIENDS 



125 



spiders. More than 90 per cent of their food consists 
of spiders and other insects, mostly of the noxious 
species, such as weevils, click and May beetles. At 
times they vary their diet with fruit. In June they 
helped themselves to cherries, to which they were 
most welcome. Afterward they fed on young grass- 
hoppers from the gardens. The field grasshoppers of 
the summer season were very small and made choice 
morsels for both the young and the old. 




PHOEBE 



126 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

WITH THE WARBLERS. 

Would you know these nervous little creatures that 
people our tree tops, then take your field glass and go 
into the moist woods and thickets. Do not expect 
to hear warbling songs, for notwithstanding the name 
warbler, the warblers do not warble. The songs of 
the most of them are weak, wiry, high-pitched sounds, 
rapidly repeated. 

There are three score and ten warblers in the United 
States, but less than half that number visit the central 
states. Only a few of these are summer residents, 
turning south in August and September, when the 
woods abound with their lisping notes. The last half 
of May is probably the best time to observe the war- 
blers. The transient visitors often arriving before the 
trees are in full foliage, tarry long enough to make 
their identity possible. The warblers are among our 
smallest birds, only a few species measuring more 
than six inches in length. 

With but few exceptions the warblers inhabit the 
thick wood, living chiefly in the upper branches of the 
trees and feeding on the myriads of small insects in- 
festing tree life. Few people learn to know the war- 
blers as they have neither the time nor the inclination 
to remain in the woods long enough to make sure their 
identity. However, there are a few species that every 
one may know. Of these the yellow warbler is the 
commonest and the best known in most localities, for 
he will come to your gardens and orchards, and to your 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 127 

vines and shrubbery. Don't call him a wild canary, 
though he does wear a canary-colored suit — he is the 
summer yellow bird or yellow warbler. If you are a 
careful observer, you'll see the olive green in the back 
and the brown streaks on the breast of what is other- 
wise a yellow bird. The male and female are much 
alike, both wearing yellow. They flit about like rip- 
ened leaves driven about by an unruly wind. 

Last year the yellow warblers were here by May 
11th and in a week many of them had their nests built. 
Near the edge of town, in trees and shrubbery along a 
ravine, I found four of their nests, all of which were 
hung less than six feet from the ground. A blackberry 
vine, a willow tree, an elm shrub, and a small horse 
chestnut bush, each held a flaxen pouch. These sil- 
very-gray pouches w r ere artistically woven from fine 
plant fiber and lined with down and fine hair. The 
nests were beautiful, as beautiful as the birds them- 
selves. No sooner had the nests been made, when 
that impostor, the cowbird, began her intrusions. In 
each nest, among the bluish white eggs mottled with 
brown, a cowbird had deposited her egg, which was 
twice the size of the warbler's egg. I was interested 
to know what would happen. In one of the nests the 
cowbird's egg -was left undisturbed, in another the 
warbler cleverly built another story over the bottom 
of the nest, thus concealing and burying it. The yel- 
low warbler often builds a nest of several stories in 
order that she may get rid of the unwelcome eggs. 

The nest in the elm shrub fared the worst, for in 



128 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

this nest the cowbird had deposited two eggs among 
the four warbler's eggs, making six eggs to be brooded 
over until the day when the eggs would hatch. Two 
weeks later my patient waiting was rewarded by see- 
ing a nest filled with four young warblers and two big 
cowbirds. What a family for the little parents to 
feed ! On the morning of the fourth day after hatch- 
ing, I visited the nest and found that two of the war- 
blers were missing. Who was responsible for their 
tragic fate? While I was thinking of some possible 
cause of their disappearance, my eyes were attracted 
to some flies at work on something near my feet. 
There lay the warblers — dead. There was but one 
solution to this tragedy ; the little birds having starved 
to death, were carried from the nest and dropped to the 
earth. The cowbirds, their flaming red mouths wide 
open, had taken the food which rightly belonged to the 
young warblers. 

Some day in May, you may see a pair of black and 
white-streaked birds creeping around the tree trunks 
very much like the nuthatches do. They are not nut- 
hatches but black and white warblers, helping them- 
selves to a meal of insect food. Listen to the song — 
a weak, wiry, "zee, zee, zee," he calls as he plants 
himself against the trunk of another tree. The black 
and white warbler builds her nests on the ground, in 
which she lays four or five small white eggs, speckled 
with cinnamon brown on the larger end. This warbler 
is easily identified; a black and white streaked back, 
a black throat, a light breast heavily streaked with 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 129 

black are the marks by which you may know him. 
Then, too, he is smaller than the woodpeckers and 
brown creepers. 

You must not miss seeing our summer resident 
warbler — the American redstart, brilliant and flaming. 
If you chance upon a pair of birds flitting from tree 
to tree, catching insects on the wing, dressed in black 
and salmon, you may be quite sure that they are red- 
starts. The head, back, the upper wing and middle 
tail feathers of the male are black, basal, half of wing 
feathers, sides of breast and flanks, rich salmon. The 
female is less gorgeous in her attire, the salmon of the 
male being replaced by a dull yellow, and the back is 
somewhat grayish. I like the redstart's song, perhaps 
because it is so genuinely rich and jolly. Moist woods, 
May flowers, grass grown brooks, these are the proper 
stage setting for the redstart, which is very much of 
a tropical bird. The nest usually placed in a small tree 
or sapling, six to twenty feet from the ground, is built 
of strips of bark, rootlets and lined with fine tendrils 
and down. Sometimes the redstart is taken for the 
Blackburnian warbler. The latter has orange not sal- 
mon in his plumage. The orange in the center of the 
black crown, and the conspicuous white feathers in 
the tail, are characteristic markings that help you to 
know the Blackburnian from his cousin the redstart. 

If you should happen upon a bird in your orchard, 
wearing a black mask and a yellow vest, call him the 
Maryland yellowthroat. His home is in the thickets, 
but he often frequents the orchards and vines near by, 



130 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

to feast upon the insects feeding there. He is such a 
restless little body, skipping nervously from one retreat 
to another, making it hard for you to follow him. 
But listen to that outburst of song "witch-ee-tee, witch- 
ee-tee," he sings to his mate, then retreats to the thick- 
et. The female does not wear the black mask. Her 
plumage is more subdued in color; back, olive green; 
breast, grayish, white underneath; sides, yellowish. 
The yellow throat, unlike most warblers, builds on or 
near the ground. The nest is made of strips of bark, 
dry leaves and grasses, the interior being lined with 
fine grasses. Her nest like that of the yellow warbler's 
is often invaded by the cowbird, who intrudes her 
eggs into the nest of the helpless victim. Instead of 
evicting the egg y the yellowthroat hatches the egg 
and cares for the young impostor, though her own 
little ones may be starving. 

The myrtle warbler occasionally spends the winter 
here. You may know him by his strong, forcible call 
note, "tchip," the yellow patch on his crown, the yellow 
under parts, and the yellow patches on rump and 
wings. Myrtle warblers go north to nest. They are 
often seen in their migrations, tarrying a few days in 
the central states, as they journey northward. 

It is interesting to note the various warblers that 
may be found along a certain parallel of latitude. In 
this latitude — 41 degrees north — I have never found 
the pine warbler as a summer resident, but in Colora- 
do he sang to me on a hot August day from the 
stunted pines and quaken asp on Prospect Hill. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



131 



However, he may have been already journeying south- 
ward. In the latitude of Boston, he is a common sum- 
mer resident, while at Washington he is an uncommon 
summer resident. 



ffV 




BOBOLINK 



A few chippy-birds and yellow warblers will clean 
the slugs from your roses and shrubs. 



132 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

A MORNING ROLL CALL, JUNE 21ST. 

Farewell to Spring! Good morning to Summer! 
A good long day in which to enjoy June's offerings 
from vine and tree in field and wood. Sixteen hours 
of light today in which to watch the white woolly 
clouds pile up in great soft masses till they reach 
mid-heaven. Oh, glorious day of sun and shade! 
When old Sol climbs up to 100 degrees, would that 
all men could throng to the country and seek shelter 
under the thick-foliaged trees. For on a morning like 
this you want to get down by some cool stream 
hemmed in by a thick wood, and rest and dream. 

The birds and bees come and go and you need not 
get up and follow them, for if you are in modest at- 
tire, and don't "flash" a fiery tie or some other signal, 
you'll be surprised how many of them will take no 
notice of you. The birds will chirp and skit about in 
the trees above your head and the bees hover in the 
flowers at your feet. This seems to be a morning in 
which the sparrows and finches are especially active. 
From tree-tops, shrubs and vines, from fences, under- 
brush, and pasture land, come "tsips," chirps, trills, 
and songs of sparrows and finches. 

I take my pencil and begin calling the roll. Song 
sparrow ! Yes ! Clear, strong, and variable comes the 
response from a small oak. He turns so as to show 
his marked breast. He outdoes all others in singing, 
for he has six variations of song to his credit. 

Field sparrow ! From the underbrush comes a num- 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 133 

ber of simple trills. Then one sings his plaintive lit- 
tle ditty, "cher, we, de — de." When he comes nearer, I 
see that he wears a reddish-brown cap and a not very 
clean white vest. In a few minutes he disappears in 
the neighboring woodland. 

Vesper sparrow ! No answer. He passed by a 
short time ago, the white shafts in his tail being too 
conspicuous for him to lose his identity. There he is ! 
Back again ! A little plaintive and sad but tender and 
expressive are his vesper trills, often sung in early 
morning as well as in the evening. 

White-crow r ned sparrow ! No response. He an- 
swered my call a month ago. Two long notes and a 
little trill was his repertoire. But it was so sw r eet, so 
simple and natural that you wished him to sing it 
over and over again. What a trim little fellow he was, 
wearing his black and white striped crown. 

Chipping sparrow ! Hairbird ! Yes. A pair of them 
twitter their monotonous response. Repeatedly, they 
tell me that they are happy, and soon the cause of 
their extreme happiness is made known by the little 
nest of hair, carefully concealed in a hawthorn bush, 
from which the young birds are about to fly. Quick 
as crickets, small as wrens, they run about, apparently 
fearing nothing. They are the smallest but most fear- 
less members of the sparrow family. Their appear- 
ance differs but little from other sparrows — rufous 
caps, light vests, and coats of mixed brown, black, 
gray and white, complete their uniforms. 

Grasshopper sparrow ! From the old pasture field an 



134 OUR DO ORYARD FRIENDS 

insect-like "tzee-ee-ee-ee" answers my call. I passed 
his nest this morning on my way to the woods. Al- 
most did I crush his mate beneath my feet for she 
did not fly up from the ground till I was within a yard 
of her. You would not have seen her at a rod's dis- 
tance for her mixed black, brown, gray and buff back 
and tail matched the scanty growth in the meadow. 
What wonderful protection do the quiet, mixed colors 
in the plumage afford these sparrows. The nest, a sim- 
ple wreath of fine straws and grasses, lay flat upon the 
earth, in which were four small eggs, white, thickly 
dotted with reddish brown. The yellow on the wing 
is the most characteristic marking of this sparrow and 
for that reason he is often called the yellow-winged 
sparrow. Some erroneously call him the ground bird, 
or ground sparrow. 

But listen ! What is that song I hear, coming from 
the low wet marsh beyond the stream? Some transient 
visitor, I dare say, whom I have not heard before. 
"Tweet-tweet-tweet," comes the oft-repeated song, 
sweet and clear. To what name will he answer the 
roll call? A search through the various bird books 
reveals the fact that he is the swamp sparrow, a good 
name to give to a bird who likes wet, grassy marshes 
and swamps ; but untrue to the name he bears, in the 
South you will often find him frequenting dry fields 
and meadows. 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 135 

VESPERS. 

The day is August tenth. The hour is seven. The 
entrance to the sacred retreat the country road. As 
you approach this forest abbey, you pause reverently, 
silently admiring its wondrous creation. The great, 
green trees are its walls ; the illimitable sky, its roof ; 
the spacious earth, its floor; the weather-beaten log 
by the gray, old fence, your seat ; and the low bank of 
the blossoming ditch, your footstool. 

It is early evening, and you are alone at this vesper 
service. The western sky is an even blue-gray, and a 
moist breeze stirs the foliage. The air is full of distant 
sound — the woodland choir engaged at rehearsal. 

For some moments the other senses seem brothers 
to your feasting eyes, as you behold the wealth of 
color. Goldenrods stretch along the woodside, their 
flaring heads, swaying in beautiful contrast to the 
purple ironweeds. Near the earth are generous drops 
of blue and violet in the heads of heal-all. Bright clus- 
ters of yellow nestle close to the woody stems of St. 
Johnswort; and in richer setting against the gray 
rails are the orange touch-me-nots of the jewel-weed. 
Strong and straight as Indian sentinels, stand the teas- 
els, lifting their lilac cones with respectful dignity to 
attract the passing bee. Your hands are perfumed 
with the wholesome smell of pennyroyal, and with 
the wind's caress, comes the sweet scent of everlasting. 

You wonder on this quiet August night, when bird 
voices are usually silent, why so many songsters join 



136 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

in this vesper service; and whether with them as with 
yourself, the balmy breeze, the humid air, and the 
show of color serve as a tonic to their moods. For, 
perhaps, not another night of this month will echo so 
many bird voices, "sweeter than the priests." 

From near and far, you could hear the sweet chants 
of the vesper sparrows, for whom this service was 
named. Their notes were never so strong or as joyful 
as those of the song sparrows, but they were always 
more plaintive, suggestive, and tender. The simplicity 
of the vesper's song has always appealed to me. I do 
not feel that his trills are "degraded," as one bird lover 
writes. You may tire of them, when stronger voices 
are in the ascendant, but at the eventide, when all liv- 
ing things are wont to tender their farewells to the 
dying day, the vesper sparrows touch the right chords. 

Then born from afar, came the musical "cher-we-de- 
de-des" of the field sparrows. In this still, evening 
hour, these modest, little birds paid to earth and heaven 
their enchanting devotions. How they did sing! 
Sometimes, but a single note, then a dozen or more 
clear, ringing voices could be heard in the melodious 
choir. Nor did they always sing the same song; their 
variation or trills made music fit for the gods. Would 
that some instrument might reproduce the various 
sparrow trills for the delight of all woodland folk. 
Even now, they sound upon my inward ear. Joy, sor- 
row, pathos, love, tenderness, every emotion the hu- 
man heart is heir to, seems to find its expression in 
some note of song. 




Four Young Thrashers. 
(Permission of Doubleday, 

Page & Co.) 



A Brown Thrasher's Nest 
in a Hawthorn. 





A Meadowlark's Nest. 




•*'• '"•-■•' -'%\* 



Young Thrashers (Nest in a 
Brush Heap). 




The Grassy Nest of a Field 
Sparrow. 




A Young Field Sparrow. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 139 

A flash of white, an advance of brown, from what 
would otherwise be a black bird; several long notes, 
and then a shuffle of feet among the leaves, are marks 
of uniform and preliminary tunings that belong to 
towhee bunting or chewink. He, more than other 
birds, loves to sing at sundown, at early dawn, and 
even in the black hours of midnight. Often, in the 
spring, the stillness of an April wood will be broken 
by this ground robin's clever performance. His song 
is very simple, just a few strong notes, then a rapid 
trill, a descent of the scale. 

Your ears now catch a sad strain, for the wood pewee 
introduces a plaintive note that makes you feel that 
somewhere, some one is suffering, and you may be to 
blame. The gray-black of the bird and the tree are 
the first to be lost in the deepening shadow of night, 
but the "pewee-ee-ee" grows in feeling and pathos as 
the night continues to darken. Soon all markings 
that distinguish one bird from another are lost in the 
dusky shadow that grows blacker with the advance of 
night. The flesh-colored bill of the field sparrow, and 
the white shafts in the vesper's tail are no longer seen. 

You would miss none of the last notes, as the birds 
seek cover for the night. There's the jerky "tsip" of 
the cardinal, as he skips from one bush to another, 
the faintest warble of the bluebird from the scrubby 
oaks, and the low chirp of the robin from the hawthorn 
thicket. Sometimes there is but a single chant, an 
interval of silence, then a duet of sparrow trills, fol- 
lowed by a score or more of voices. Wrens, gold- 



140 



OUR DOOR-YARD FRIENDS 



finches, indigo buntings, crested titmice and thrashers 
contribute some of their rarest notes to the midsummer 
night's vespers. They rarely sing their full repertoire. 
No, they are the sweet "good nights" low, tender, musi- 
cal. Ere long the vespers cease. One by one, bird 
notes grow fewer. Only a low twitter from the cock- 
spur thorn breaks upon the silent night, and the wild 
screech of an owl sends a shudder through the forest 
folk. You go to your tent, draw in its folds for the 
night — a night in which you have lived and learned. 




SONG SPARROW 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 141 

GNATCATCHERS. 

September is an unusually good month to watch 
gnatcatchers for they often leave the thick woods be- 
fore migrating southward and come to the orchards 
and gardens. The blue-gray gnatcatcher is the only 
species found in eastern North America. It may be 
seen in various parts of the country from the Atlantic 
to the Rocky Mountains, south of latitude 42. North 
of this it is found only as an occasional visitor. Mr. 
Frank Chapman in "Bird Life" speaks of the gnat- 
catcher as a "southern bird, occurring only locally or 
as a straggler north of Maryland." However, as a 
summer resident, it is quite common in the central 
states. In the springtime he usually stays in the 
dense, moist woods, where insect life is abundant, but 
in the months of August and September you may look 
for him in your gardens and orchards. 

The blue-gray gnatcatcher is about the size of the 
golden-crowned kinglet, both birds measuring less 
than five inches. They belong to the same family and 
are great insect eaters. When it is in a bush or tree 
with the English sparrow, the gnatcatcher looks to be 
but half as large as the sparrow. 

You will have no trouble in identifying these nervous 
little birds in their blue-gray uniforms. The backs of 
the males match the lilac grays of weathered boards 
and tree trunks. Their breasts are a grayish white; 
the wings show markings of light gray and white. In 
the tail the outer feathers are white, the others chang- 



142 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

ing gradually to darker values until the center ones 
are black. The females are lighter and more grayish. 
The young birds show, during the first season, the 
same colorings as the mother bird. Later in the year 
the males grow darker. 

Would you spend a pleasant hour? Then watch 
the gnatcatchers get their food, a large part of which 
is made up of gnats, flies, bugs, mosquitoes and worms. 
Watch them in the cedars extracting insect eggs and 
larvae from twig and trunk. To and from the tree 
they go in quick short flights, catching the small flies 
swarming near the outer branches. Soon they are on 
the potato vines helping themselves to the larvae of 
the Colorado beetle ; then they go to the currant bushes 
and the grape arbor and feed upon the aphides and 
small grubs found there. One August day, in less than 
five minutes, the gnatcatcher fed a full-grown young 
bird two worms, a half dozen gnats, and an insect tak- 
en from the trunk of the cedar. They like to visit the 
wild cucumber vine, for it attracts many small flies and 
insects. One family of gnatcatchers visited this vine 
daily for one whole week, feasting upon the tiny flies 
and bugs that tenanted its blossoms. In securing 
their food on the wing they do not whirl about in the 
air as much as the flycatchers, but by a quick dip or 
two they take the passing flies while making their 
flight from one place to another. 

To see the gnatcatcher's nest you will need a field 
glass, for he usually builds high up jon a limb or a 
crotch of a tree, often thirty and more feet from the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 143 

ground. Such a trim, little bird would be expected to 
build an artistic nest, and he does. Tendrils, bits of 
bark, and fine grasses dexterously interwoven with 
an outer covering of lichens, complete the pretty struc- 
ture, in which the mother bird lays four or five bluish- 
white eggs, thickly mottled with brown. 

In their flight and movements the gnatcatchers are 
much like the kinglets. They sing a sweet little song, 
oftener heard at mating time than at any other sea- 
son, but their squeaky call notes are incessantly re- 
peated when feeding in the trees. 




Cats, like boys and girls, have to be trained not 
to kill birds and little chickens. Homeless cats are 
among the greatest destroyers of bird life. 



144 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

WHERE SOME BIRDS BUILD THEIR NESTS. 

Birds are quite as different in their habits of nest- 
building as men are in the locating of their homes. 
The low, sandy beach, the river's brink, the grassy 
swamp, the level meadow, the leafy bush, the haw- 
thorn thicket, the scrubby oak, the graceful elm, the 
rocky cliff and the mountain top, have all been selected 
as fit nesting places by the birds. 

Most of our land birds build flat on the ground, or 
in low bushes and shrubs, or in trees twenty to fifty 
feet from the surface of the earth. In the spring, when 
the meadows are still bare, you'll find a number of 
nests low on the ground, made of fine weed stems, hair 
and grasses. These are owned by the field, song, ves- 
per, and grasshopper sparrows. Unless the birds 
are near, the amateur will find it difficult to tell to 
which particular sparrow the nest belongs ; for these 
sparrows build their nests very much alike, and of 
the same kinds of materials. They do not always 
build in the meadows but just as often select the low 
bushes, usually some species of the hawthorn, in 
which to raise their young. Hairbirds, or chipping 
sparrows, weave their hair-lined nests in low bushes 
and trees, from three to twenty feet from the ground. 

Mourning doves collect a few sticks into a round 
pile on the ground, which serves the purpose of a nest, 
but they too sometimes prefer a higher outlook and 
build in trees, usually about twenty feet up. 

Meadowlarks and quails like the timothy meadows 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 145 

and grassy fields. The former places her nest of grass, 
straws and blades under some grassy tussock close to 
the earth, while the quail conceals^her ten or more 
eggs in an arched oven or tunnel well made of grass 
and weeds. 

Since meadows are often much disturbed by cultiva- 
tion, quails frequently place their nests in the open 
spaces of overgrown pastures and woodlands. 

In the shrubbery of your lawns, and in the thickets 
and bushes of open woods, the yellow warblers, very 
much like wild canaries in appearance, flit nervously 
about. Look for their nests in the wild rose stalks and 
in the leafy bushes, about five feet high. In April, 
1912, I found one in a small horse chestnut bush, an- 
other in an elm sapling, and others in the blackberry 
vines and in the willows bordering the creek. The 
yellow warbler's nest is so exquisite in structure, that 
it deserves more than passing notice. Beautifully 
woven of hempen fibers, and lined with soft silken 
down, this flaxen pouch forms a luxurious cradle for 
the young birds. The cowbird often selects the yellow 
warbler's nest in which to deposit her unwelcome egg. 
In that case, the little warbler usually builds another 
story to her nest, covering up the cowbird's egg. If 
the cowbird persists in intruding and lays a second egg, 
the warbler may even add another story, thus ridding 
the nest of the undesirable burden. Last summer ev- 
ery warbler's nest I found had from one to two cow- 
bird's eggs in it. In one nest were four young warblers 
and two cowbirds. The latter consumed so much of 



146 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

the food brought by the old birds that their own young 
were deprived, and starved to death. 

Catbirds, brown thrashers, and cardinal grosbeaks 
generally build in tangled vines, thorny bushes and 
low scrubby trees. For some seasons I have found 
the catbirds and thrashers showing preference for 
the hawthorns or w r hite thorns. In fact, all the nests 
found were built in the different varieties of hawthorn. 
In one woods nine thrashers' nests were built in the 
crusgalli — or cockspur thorn, and nearly as many cat- 
birds' nests. The nests were placed well in the center 
of the tree on a platform of crossed branches generally 
eight to fifteen feet from the ground. Birds find in the 
hawthorn bushes excellent nesting places, for sur- 
rounded by a circular screen of thick green leaves, the 
nest is well hidden. The stout gray spines form an 
effectual barrier to cats and owls and the thick net- 
work of branches, in color and arrangement, afford pro- 
tection to the rude nest of coarse sticks and straws. 
Formerly the brown thrasher built his nest on the 
ground, but continued exposure to the disturbance of 
domestic animals, has caused him to seek another 
environment. 

The cardinal grosbeak, like the robin, nests in var- 
ious places. If he lives exclusively in the woods, you 
will find his nest, seldom over ten or twelve feet from 
the ground, in the hawthorn, in the locust, or in any 
other tree with closely-woven branches. If your car- 
dinal is sociable and frequents the lawns, gardens and 
orchards, you may find his nest in the mulberry tree 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 147 

in the back yard, or in the cedar on the front lawn, and 
if kindly treated he may find a convenient nook under 
your porch. Cardinals, thrashers, and catbirds build 
their nests very much alike, of coarse sticks, weed 
straws, dry leaves, and grass stems. Sometimes they 
make use of materials from cultivated fields, such as 
old cane and cornstalks, which are used as foundation 
planks. 

Robins, those charming visitors to our orchards and 
gardens, build their nests in the trees along our streets 
and dooryards and in the fruit trees of our orchards. 
They often build in forest trees, but seldom in the 
thick woods. The robin likes to place his mud plas- 
tered nest in the crotch of a tree from ten to thirty feet 
from the ground. Where there are maple trees, he 
shows a preference for them. In 1912, in the trees 
along the streets of a small town more than two score 
of robins' nests were found in the maples. The year 
following more than half that number were built in 
the same trees. The robins like to build under the 
eaves of porches and, if let alone, will often nest there 
season after season. 

Wrens find nesting sites in places where other birds 
would not think of venturing. I have found them 
nesting in old cans, in old shoes, in the pocket of an 
old coat left on the fence, in gourd boxes, in currant 
bushes, and in the niches of porches. 

At one time we thought of the phoebes as birds who 
loved the wet woods where insect life was plentiful. 
Formerly they built under some old bridge or culvert 



US OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

or in some rocky bank. But the phoebe has rapidly 
adapted itself to the comforts afforded by civilization 
and now comes to the porches and pergolas, to the 
barns and sheds. The eaves of an old shed, the project- 
ing board above the porch window, or the porch post, 
is a good place on which to lay its foundation of mud, 
moss, and grasses. The phoebe lines her nests with 
hair and feathers, sometimes using wool instead of 
hair. The wool and feathers picked up for nest lining 
often causes the death of her young. For too often 
they are chicken feathers, pregnant with parasites, and 
when the eggs hatch, the lice attack the young birds, 
killing them. One would think that a tragic experience 
of this kind would prevent their using the materials a 
second time, but this is not the case. Last summer 
four phoebe nests were built under our east and north 
porches. All were wool and feather lined. Sixteen 
young birds were hatched. Two of the nestlings were 
killed by the vermin that preyed upon them. 

Of the plover family, but one of the species nests in 
this latitude. The killdeer, which is really a shore 
bird and more numerous near lakes and rivers, is very 
common in many localities. Always have I found the 
killdeer's nest, if nest it can be called, in dry meadows. 

On May 27th, I was walking through a pasture 
field when a killdeer flew up just a few feet from me. 
On the dry ground she had raked together some small 
bits of bark and laid her eggs. In another meadow 
a few sticks formed into a loosely arranged fence kept 
the eggs within their confines. In some places the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 14$ 

killdeer builds better, appropriating dry grasses and 
weed straws in place of twigs and bark. The killdeer's 
eggs are large, measuring nearly two inches in diam- 
eter. In color, they are a trifle lighter than putty, 
looking like good hard clay. Over the buffy-gray sur- 
face of the egg, spots of black or fuscous are scratched 
and scrawled, chiefly on the larger end. 

Baltimore orioles usually swing their neat hammocks 
from the extremity of some branch of a tall tree, twenty 
to fifty feet up. If the oriole shows a preference for 
any tree, it is for the elm, for more oriole nests are 
found in elms than in other trees. The orchard oriole 
likes to place her deftly woven cradle in the fruit trees, 
especially in the apple and pear. 

If you are out in the woods late in May, look for the 
warblers who are claiming the tree tops, and feeding 
upon the insects found under the leaves and in the 
bark of the trees. With but a few exceptions the wood 
warblers live and nest in the forest trees. Their nests 
are built at various altitudes, some of them on the 
ground, others, like the yellow warbler and Maryland 
yellowthroat, in bushes and low shrubs. But the great- 
er number of them build high in trees, from twenty to 
fifty feet from the ground. 

We regret that in the last few years so many purple 
martin houses have been without tenants. These house 
swallows used to appropriate the boxes and gourd- 
houses erected for them. That they are decreasing in 
numbers in some parts of the country is apparent from 
the number of deserted nesting-places. Some of the 



15G OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

empty boxes have attracted the tree swallows which 
seem to prefer them to the holes in hollow tree trunks 
where they formerly nested. It is also a lamentable 
fact that too many of our modern barns are so con- 
structed that they furnish little or no hospitality to 
the barn swallows. Wherever possible, they build 
their mud-plastered nests, softly lined with feathers 
and grasses, on the rafters of old barns and sheds. 

Closely related to the barn swallow is the eave swal- 
low, known in the west as the cliff swallow, because 
of its preference for cliffs and rocks as nesting-sites.- 
Under the shelter of the eaves and projecting roofs of 
barns and outbuildings, the eave swallows build their 
rows of clay abodes. Their nests, pouch-shaped affairs, 
are made almost entirely of mud. 

Near the water in the sandy bank of the streams, 
you will find the dark cavernous tunnel of the bank 
swallow. Along one river I saw a score of these dark 
holes dug in the bank, within a stretch of twenty rods. 
The holes vary from two to three feet in depth. For 
a number of successive seasons they came back to the 
same old bank until the ravages of ice and water, un- 
dermining their tunnels, made it necessary for them 
to prospect in other places. The next season whole 
colonies of them began their excavations in the river's 
bank farther down stream. 

The rough-winged swallow prefers to be less shut 
in than the bank swallow, and would have less dark- 
ness in his home ; no black curtains are to be drawn 
around his domicile. He and his mate carry their 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 151 

sticks and grasses to a niche in the embankment of an 
old bridge, or sometimes place them in the wall of a 
stone culvert. From four to six eggs are laid, small 
and white. Like the bank swallow, the rough-winged 
frequently returns to its old nesting place. 

One has only to keep a sharp lookout throughout 
April and May to find the places where the birds build. 
On the marshy shore, just out of reach of the rippling 
waves, the sandpiper finds a place to deposit her 
spotted eggs, while high on the mountain side at Sum- 
mit, more than 10,000 feet above the nest of the sand- 
piper, a pine warbler builds her nest in a fir tree. One 
man likes his summer home built at the ocean's edge, 
the other erects his on a cliff in the mountains. Each 
is happy in his own environment, and so it is with the 
birds. They place and hang their domiciles in such 
places and altitudes as are best adapted to their needs 
and comfort. 




BALTIMORE ORIOLE 



152 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

TAKING THE BIRD CENSUS. 

Some people in this world do things for the mere 
love of doing ; for the pleasure they get from knowing 
the work has been done is sufficient reward and com- 
pensation. Many of them are engaged in creating 
such an environment that man and child, beast and 
bird may live as "one family here." To this class of 
persons belong the census-takers of the birds, self-ap- 
pointed men, women, and children, who take it upon 
themselves to determine the increase or decrease of 
the avian population. 

They choose their own time and district. Their work 
is to determine the number of birds in a certain dis- 
trict by actual count. In order to do this accurately, 
the counts must be made both in the spring and the fall. 
There are a number of them at work now, taking the 
bird census in order to determine the number of new 
nests built this year and the total number of living 
birds in the districts worked. 

The birds are classified as permanent residents, sea- 
sonal, or merely transient visitors. All birds are re- 
ported and belong to one of these classes. To illus- 
trate : latitude 41 degrees north, nuthatches, titmice, 
chickadees, cardinals, hairy woodpeckers and blue jays 
are permanent residents, remaining throughout the 
year. Tanagers, bobolinks, orioles, wrens, warblers 
and bluebirds are seasonal residents or summer resi- 
dents, as some wish to call them ; they remain only 
through the summer season, while tree sparrows and 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 153 

juncos are winter residents in this latitude, and king- 
lets, redpolls, and crossbills are transient visitors. 

The only qualifications requisite to become an enum- 
erator of birds are : the person must see and hear 
well, tell the truth, not indulge in mere speculation ; 
must know to what families and resident class the 
birds belong, w T here they build their nests, and the 
trees in which they build ; and make semi-annual re- 
ports of actual counts of nests built and young birds 
raised in the district during the season. 

A notebook and a pencil is all the outfit required. 
This little company of silent workers is very small. 
That others may become interested in the work of tak- 
ing the bird census, I am submitting a report from one 
of them : 

Longitude 84° W. Latitude 41° North. State of 
Ohio. Sec. 3. Range 4. Township 4. County of 
Defiance. 

Burr Woodland (20 Acres). 

Report Showing Bird Population, 1911. 

Name of Bird Nests Birds 

New Old Total Young Old Total 

Hairbirds 5 7 12 16 10 26 

Song Sparrows 3 6 9 10 6 16 

Field Sparrows 2 2 4 6 4 10 

Towhee Buntings 1 13 2 5 

Yellow Warblers 1 14 2 6 

Brown Thrashers 2 1 3 8 4 12 

Cardinal Grosbeak 1 13 2 5 

Total 15 16 31 50 30 80 

Of the number of birds that actually live in this 
twenty-acre woodland, the average is about five to an 
acre of woods, including those that had built nests near 



154 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

the edge of the woodland. All the nests were built in 
hawthorns, which form three separate thickets in the 
woodland where the larger timber had been cut away. 
Brown thrashers have long shown preference for haw- 
thorns, but the absence of nests in other trees and 
bushes proves that other birds also show preference 
for these thorny trees and shrubs. The Burr wood- 
land being rich in hawthorns makes it an excellent 
retreat for birds. Six varieties of hawthorns grow in 
it. These hawthorns, or white thorns, furnish excel- 
lent nesting places for birds. In the springtime they 
are encircled by belts of foliage which completely ob- 
scure the nest. Their long, stout spines on twigs and 
branches make protection secure by keeping out most 
bird enemies, and since the leaves remain on till Sep- 
tember, it is possible for the birds to raise several 
broods in them and yet have the necessary seclusion. 
The network of gray spines and branches is so sim- 
ilar in color to the materials of which most nests are 
built, especially the thrasher's, cardinal's, and catbird's 
nests, that it is difficult to discern the nest from the 
netted mass of twigs and dry leaves in the hawthorn. 
In autumn, the fruit of the Crateagus mollis is a palat- 
able food for the broods of young birds that have been 
reared in it. Every farm should have a large number 
of hawthorns growing in the fence-rows of its fields 
and meadows, as nesting places for birds. In many 
places there are but 10 to 15 insect-eating birds to an 
acre. With the balance of nature so badly disturbed, 
is it any wonder that the insects are devouring our 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



155 



crops and killing our orchards? 

The following is a report of a census-taker working 

in Shawnee Glen, Ohio : 

Name of bird. No. of nests. Location. 

Robins 32 Maple, 10; oak, 4; locust, 2; 

hawthorns, 3; poplar, 2; elm, 
1; pear, 2; other places, 8. 
4 Vines, 2; hawthorns, 2. 

4 Pear, 1; other places, 3. 

2 Elm, 2. 

4 Elm, 1; horse chestnut, 1; 
vines, 2. 

6 On the ground in meadows. 

3 In bank of river. 
1 Hawthorn, 1. 
1 White pine, 1. 

1 Hawthorn, 1. 

2 Hawthorn, 2. 

3 Hawthorn, 3. 
1 Elm, 1. 

1 Oak, 1. 

5 On the ground. 
3 On the ground. 

2 Under porch roofs. 

Total 75 



Hairbirds 

Wrens 

Orioles 

Yellow Warblers 

Meadow Larks 
Bank Swallows 
Cardinal 
Mourning Dove 
Goldfinches 
Catbird 
Thrashers 
Warbling Vireo 
Yellow Hammer 
Song Sparrows 
Field Sparrows 
Phoebes 



12 in hawthorns. 

10 in maples. 

4 in elms. 

4 in oaks. 

45 in other places and trees. 

Total number of eggs laid, 249. 

Approximate number of young birds living in Shaw- 
nee Glen, June 1st, 180. Causes of death of young 
birds: — Two wrens' nests destroyed by cats. 

Three song sparrows' nests invaded by cowbirds. 

Five yellow warblers starved to death because of 
the imposition of cowbirds. 



156 



OUR DO ORYARD FRIENDS 



Two robins' nests invaded by owls. 

May 27th, a heavy rain storm loosened many robins' 
nests from their anchorings ; the next morning the 
nests lay beneath the trees, the young birds drowned. 

Seventy-seven different species of birds were identi- 
fied in Shawnee Glen, but some of them nested outside 
the district in which the observations were made. 




ROBIN 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 157 

VISITORS TO THE OLD COTTONWOOD. 

Only a few rods from the old farmhouse stood an' 
aged cottonwood which had felt the snow and sleet, 
the showers and sunshine of a half-century. 

In its early youth, the lightning had ripped off a 
small branch but the wound soon healed, leaving only 
a slight scar. So tall and towering it grew that once 
its head was clipped that it might better withstand 
the tempests. Before it reached its fiftieth year, a 
number of the lower branches were lopped off by the 
violent storms, that made it seem much like a broken- 
down veteran who has the spirit of youth but bears 
the infirmities of old age. With its branches broken, 
its symmetry destroyed by beheading, it was to all 
appearances an ugly tree in the winter season, but in 
summer its ugliness and deformity were lost under 
the glossy green foliage. It was then fairly good- 
looking. 

Standing half way between the source and mouth 
of the river and midway between an expanse of mead- 
ow and wood, the tree was an excellent stop-over 
place for the birds. 

Every month of the year it was visited by some of 
the permanent residents, who traveled but short dis- 
tances to and from the place. On the cold days of Jan- 
uary the nuthatch shuffled up and down the upper 
trunk of the tree, and the red-headed, hairy, and 
downy woodpeckers left their bill prints in the rough 
bark. Blue jays came to scold and shriek; then to 



158 OUR DO.ORY ARD FRIENDS 

chuckle at their own foolish clamor, and to have a 
game of tag in the bare branches. Chickadees and 
tufted titmice examined the loose bark for moth eggs 
and cocoons. Flitting, singing, chirping; their cheery 
commotion was hailed with delight. 

On other days, when the sky was dark and forbid- 
ding, and a strong east wind scattered loose flakes of 
snow, a flock of j uncos swooped down upon it, setting 
the tree all a-twitter with their sweet clinking notes. 

The brown creeper, a rare visitor, usually made his 
short call in mid-winter. I have in mind a picture, of 
him, slowly creeping up and around the tree trunk, 
much as a clammy mud puppy w r ould do if it w T ere his 
business to climb trees. Who knows but that the 
creeper may be distantly related to him. So quiet and 
deliberate was he in all his maneuvers, and so per- 
fectly heedless to intrusion, that I was made to won- 
der why the bird assumed such an indifferent attitude. 
It may have been that he depended upon his protective 
coloring as a safeguard, for his back was so like the 
grayish black trunk that he was not readily seen even 
when in an exposed position. 

Every now and then he uttered a mechanical note 
not unlike the jerky squeak produced by a distorted 
sapling locked in the arms of a larger tree and sud- 
denly wrenched by a violent wind. Often when going 
up the tree he would halt a moment as if thinking out 
some new mode of procedure. If thoughts they were, 
they certainly failed to produce^new actions for he 
went on doing the things he had done all his life. But 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 159 

we have forgotten that the process of evolution was 
not for a day and even our feathered friend — the brown 
creeper — may yet evolve from his dense stupidity. 

Occasionally, through the winter, a flock of prairie 
horned larks visited the Cottonwood, not perching on 
its branches but running under it and along the clay 
road passing the tree. Always we liked to hear their 
soft tinkling music as they flew low over the meadow. 
Regularly, every January, the gold finches swept 
through it on their way to the woods and thickets. 
They might have been taken for sparrows, had not 
their undulating, wavelike flight betrayed them. 

Once, on a cold, damp day a sparrow hawk sat still 
and straight on an upper branch. Whether his eyes 
were fixed on the English sparrows, twittering in the 
red haw tree ; or whether he was dreaming of the field 
mice in a near-by cornfield I could not tell. However, 
it must have been the latter for after a time he flew 
to the field where a few shocks of corn had been left 
standing. 

No other birds were as frequent in their visits to the 
tree as the yellow hammers, or flickers. From late 
February to late December, every month of the year, 
except January, the old tree became a drumming place 
for these stocky birds. 

In late February, there always came a pair of flickers 
to the tree. Into the old hole, just below a broken limb 
they would thrust their heads, and probe about the 
opening, calling contentedly, "witchy, witchy, witcbit * 
Not far away was a large, dead oak in which they 



160 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

drilled a hole and built their nests. To this same old 
oak they returned for several years. What a commo- 
tion there was going on during the mating season; 
such clattering among the branches, chasing up and 
down the hollow trunk, chattering in flicker talk, and 
making the woodland ring with their lively tattooing. 

In the dead of winter few birds stopped to sing at 
the tree-station. So it was a time of great rejoicing 
when a cardinal one day dared to leave his retreat and 
favor the passing folk with his charming whistled 
tunes. 

Today a cardinal sang his song 
To the world and its kin as they passed by; 
Not an ear was tuned in all that throng, 
Not an eye was raised to the tree so high. 

Yet, on he sang as if the world did know 
Each note of love in his song's refrain, 
So, "purty, purty," did the words come and go 
Through hours of sunshine, shadow and rain. 

If the days before February 22nd were bright and 
mild, a song sparrow came to announce the first spring 
song. After that song, "Singing in the Spring/' one 
grew expectant for the spring migrants and summer 
residents were on their way North and who could tell 
but that they might drop down to the old station on 
that very night. For three successive years the old 
cottonwood recorded the weird piercing cry of the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 161 

meadow lark on the 22nd of February. Sometimes a 
few of the larks remained all winter and so could not 
be called new arrivals. 

Unless some climatic influence, as a great snow 
storm, or zero weather, retarded their progress, the 
bluebirds and robins came on the first spring train 
which arrived about February 25th. Because of the 
continued rigor of the winter, they sometimes came a 
week later than the scheduled time or about March 1st. 

Well do I remember the thrill of rapture experienced 
on hearing the first bluebird warble as he came back 
in the spring. Almost instantly, I forgot the terrors 
of winter and hungrily employed all the senses in joy 
of what was to follow that first spring song. The 
ground was still hard and frozen and no perceptible 
stir of life in the tree, but the bluebird had come. He 
sang! and into that song he breathed the breath of 
spring. Scarcely had he left when a pair of robins 
chuckled in the Cottonwood. Their love-chatter was 
meaningless as to w r ords but I caught the spirit of the 
season and exclaimed, "We and they are His creatures 
— one family here." 

Almost on the wings of the robins came the black- 
birds and grackles on March 5th. 

From darkened skies, from treetop, high, 

There came a mighty clatter; 

Of birds in black — a countless crowd flew by; 

In concert then to chatter. 

A chuck, a chirk, a million squeaks and squirks, 



162 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

In Blackbird Esperanto. 

Did we but know the nameless quirks 

In that supernal canto. 

A few days later, March 10th, very familiar — short, 
jerky notes broke through the chilly air. A phoebe 
was singing from the lowest branch, "pee weet, pee 
weet." From the tree, he saw the place above the door 
of the old house where he and his mate would build 
their nest. 

A queer squeaking note floated down from the tree 
on March 14th, when a cowbird was leaving it to join 
another of his kind not far away. A week later a soft 
mournful "coo oo oo" sounded from the woods and 
the old tree knew that the mourning doves were there. 

On March 21st, spring arrived. All day long song 
and field sparrows sang their simple trills in the mead- 
ows. You saw "across the lawns, beneath huge trees 
a thousand rings of spring." 

By April tenth, the cottonwood was a kind of receiv- 
ing station to all newcomers, and began to put on its 
spring attire. The brown buds started to thicken and 
shine in the warm sunshine. The glossy polish ap- 
plied gave them a wet, waxy look. Not long after 
each sprig wore its flowery catkins. Red, woolly 
tassels dangled from the tree, which were soon dropped 
to the ground, where they lay curled up on the 
grass, looking very creepy and worm-like. 

About this time chipping and vesper sparrows came 
and the ruby-crowned kinglets stopped ofif on their 
spring migrating tour. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 163 

A fortnight later a spring train brought the towhee 
buntings, purple martins, and chimney swifts. The 
towhees or chewinks returned to the woods but the 
swifts and martins made the place their summer 
quarters. That night a whippoorwill called several 
times from a scrub oak standing near. 

The next day April showers played upon the earth. 
Thunder, lightning, and rain kept the heavens in 
action. On the following morning the grassy plots 
and fields were green and growing. The leaf buds on 
the cottonwood continued to respond to the generat- 
ing power of heat and moisture, and began to throw 
ofif their thick scaly wrappings. A pair of black and 
white warblers searched the tree for their noonday 
meal. Later in the day, a yellow palm warbler paid 
his first visit to the cottonwood. 

Perhaps no bird brought such a volume of music to 
the old tree, as the brown thrasher. Perched on an 
upper branch, he sang his medley which seemed to 
make all earth rejoice. 

The wrens were always welcome guests, and no 
matter what the weather was, their exuberant songs 
flowed freely from some branch or twig. They came 
on April 28th, a week or more before the thrashers. 

The morning after, the killdeers in an aerial flight 
escaped the tree top as they flew in a loose flock to the 
wooded hills beyond, their light breasts glinting in 
the warm sunshine. 

The last train of summer residents arrived in May, 
the great month for birds. Few days passed without 



164 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

bringing some new visitor. The old cottonwood be- 
gan to wear its summer garb for the thick green leaves 
were almost full size. On the fifth day of the month 
a yellow-billed cuckoo spoke its low "Good Morning ,, 
as it flew over the meadow fence, and at the noon 
hour a ruby-breasted humming bird buzzed about the 
bushes that grew under the tree. 

The second week in May, kingbirds and orioles had 
landed. The Baltimore and orchard orioles visited 
the tree but the one day in the season. The kingbirds 
spent the summer. They were not very agreeable 
visitors and too often made it unpleasant for the song 
sparrows and phoebes. The rose-breasted grosbeaks 
and indigo buntings loved the thick woods too well 
to favor the cottonwood with even a single call. 

In the last half of May, a few warblers flitted in the 
upper branches. The warbler family was large enough 
but only ten members stopped at the cottonwood en 
route to other regions. In that spring migration were 
the redstart, the Maryland yellowthroat, and the palm, 
pine, parula, yellow, black and white, black-throated 
blue, chestnut-sided, and black-burnian warblers. 

In June a red-eyed vireo sang its sweet strain over 
and over as it peered under the leaves for aphids and 
tree flies. Boblinks sat on the rail fence and let their 
"bobolink, spink, spank, spink" fall like the twangs of 
a banjo. 

Of the gnatcatcher family, the blue-gray species was 
the most punctual in its return to the cottonwood. 
Seldom an August passed but that their weak, lisping 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



165 



notes were heard, as they rapidly skipped about from 
limb to limb. They usually came about the time the 
first leaves began to drop from the tree, and no doubt 
helped themselves to the small aphids escaping from 
the leaf galls. 

So close had we lived to the old cottonwood that 
it was an occasion of great regret when the birds of 
its youth returned to it no more. Once scarlet tana- 
gers, a score or more, fired their torches of scarlet into 
the somber branches, now, rarely one red flash was 
seen. Cedar waxwings came no longer. On its fiftieth 
birthday the census of 1913 showed that fewer birds 
visited the tree than at any previous year. 




YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO 



166 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

AUTUMN'S LAST CONTRIBUTION. 

When the last blood-red leaf drops beneath the tree 
that gave it birth, you look upward at the bereft one 
and wonder what merciless power has wrought such 
destruction. There it stands stripped and naked, its 
bare branches brushed against a cold sky. 

Yesterday a wild wind waged its war upon the few 
scattered forms of color on tree and vine. Here a 
flag of crimson sumac was beaten down, there, the 
few scarlet signals in the maple tree were swept away. 
Beyond the hills the elms have yielded their last 
pieces of ragged uniforms, and the three-leaved ivy 
no longer drapes the dark tree trunks in vermilion and 
crimson ; the gray coils alone expose its poisonous na- 
ture. Not a leaf curl is left to mark the identity of the 
slender hickory whose towering head was bare more 
than a fortnight ago. 

From beneath the ironwood tree comes the sound 
of something dripping like Autumn's tears from a 
passing cloud. The tree is bare save for its hop-like 
strobiles shaken in the faces of chickadees that are 
bent on getting them. Suspended in air, with heads 
hanging downward, they pull the seeds — little nut- 
brown bags, from the strobiles. Flying to the limbs, a 
vigorous pecking follows and the seed scales fall on 
the dried leaves below. You yearn for a taste of this 
woodland fruit. The strobile is rubbed in the palm of 
the hand and the tiny bits of dainties eaten. They are 
good, but such delicate sweetmeats are for the chkka- 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 167 

dees, not for you. Would you know the reason why? 
Then go to the woods for your answer. A little later 
they are feeding in the white-ash trees. Not many of 
the brown winged seeds are taken from the creaking 
branches, for the fruit of this tree is bitter and they 
need but little of it. 

Here and there, a few species of the oak family, 
clothed in siennas and leathery browns, stand ready 
to defy the elements. They cling to their leaves till 
springtime, when they are put off as the new ones 
come forth. Except for these oaks, which add some 
warmth and color to a deciduous woodland, the scene 
spreads gray and cold before you. Your eyes search 
in vain for the flaunting orange, reds and yellows of 
leaf and flower, which, less than two moons ago, gave 
so much warmth and gayety to the landscape. Browm 
and tans, sobered and seared, grays and blacks, sug- 
gestive of death and destruction envelope you. And 
ere you are aware, your mood is chill and melancholy. 
You see only the dark values, hear only the weird calls, 
touch only the forbidden things. 

The lack of color, the absence of bright blossoms 
and green leaves, the silent and desolate woodland de- 
presses you and the thirst for something warm, some- 
thing fragrant and brilliant, becomes unquenchable. 
A mad desire for the beautiful seizes you. The burn- 
ing bush is robbed of its fire-red berries ; the crimson 
rose hips broken from the stalk are cherished for their 
warmth of color. The blue fruit of the Solomon seal 
is gone, but your hands reach upward to the dark fruit 



1#8 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

on the black haw tree. How good it is ! Mellowed by 
autumn frosts the black drupe slips smoothly from 
the flat stones. Beyond the ravine stands a tree with 
greenish-yellow fruit. It is the wild crabapple, wild 
and woody. Beneath it half-buried under the dry 
leaves lies a goodly portion of its yield, not very 
palatable to be sure and bitter-sour, but you carry away 
pocketfuls to be stewed in sugar sirup and eaten with 
friends who like whatever smacks of woodland flavor. 

Soon you are under the nut bearing trees, gathering 
the few remaining walnuts and chucking them into 
gaping pockets. You are reluctant in rejecting the 
imperfect fruit, so the small dark nuts are taken from 
leafy beds and carried home with other forest treas- 
ures. 

Accustomed to the riotous brilliant scenes of early 
autumn, your sense of color is displeased and you find 
it difficult to adapt yourself with ease to an environ- 
ment so unattractive and foreboding. But where one 
sense is not gratified another often receives a two-fold 
measure of joy and pleasure. Your ears are alert for 
every sound of the woodland. You almost fear to 
tread upon the dry leaves lest their noisy rustle drown 
the weak bird notes your ears are tuned to hear. You 
hold your breath. Yes, it is just as you thought. It is 
the squeaky note of the brown creeper. There he 
goes ! Up and down the trunk of the big oak looking 
so much like a piece of bark that your eyes must 
watch carefully to follow the flat form creeping around 
the bole and branches of the tree. From another part 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 169 

of the woodland comes the familiar "yank, yank" of 
the white-breasted nuthatch, plodding deliberately 
around the tree trunk, halting now and then to take 
some palatable morsel hidden away in the bark. With 
each new sound, your enthusiasm waxes greater, and 
you are beginning to feel that after all, things are not 
as dull and weird as you had thought. The thicket is 
quite alive, all action, motion, sound. A flock of chick- 
adees make the woods ring with their cheery "chick- 
a-dee-dees. ,, 

Clear as a flute, are the notes from the top of a tall 
shellbark hickory. At last the singer of the flute-like 
song condescends to come nearer. Skipping downward 
from twig to branch, he reaches the lowest round of 
branches, where he pours out a succession of clearly 
whistled "petos" that make you call out "Bravo." 
Thank God for the tufted titmouse ! His song, vi- 
brant with joy and goodwill, expels the last sad note 
from your responsive heart. 



170 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

A WORD ABOUT MUSEUMS AND PARKS. 

Our cities have no room for birds except in their 
museums, parks and gardens. Even the prolific house 
sparrow has left the crowded streets. And Broadway 
and Fifth Avenue are as empty of bird life as an 
Egyptian desert. 

But the city folk are nevertheless interested in birds 
for they let as many as will live in their parks where 
they may be visited by people of every name and na- 
tion. And they give special attention to dead ones, 
too. For after strictly scientific post mortems are 
made, they pay very respectful tribute to the honored 
dead by exhibiting their dried forms in glass cases in 
museums. 

A visit to a museum is to me much like a long 
drawn-out funeral of the Dead Past. But even funer- 
als are often profitable to the living, so I usually find 
myself one of the followers in the procession, viewing 
the remains, that I may lay claim to my share of 
scientific lore. 

So it was in search of scientific data that I was 
hustling ofif to the Museum of Natural History, New 
York, on a hot July day. I went directly to the bird 
section labeled "Birds of North America. " Yes, there 
they were ; species from every latitude of the country, 
from Labrador to Panama, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. Thrushes, finches, sparrows, buntings, war- 
blers, creepers, and all the rest ; no bird family but that 
had its individual mummied form, standing in its re- 




A thrasher's retreat — Hawthorn thicket. 




Young Meadowlark in hiding. 




A dark tunnel to a bank swal- Young Phoebe eleven days old. 
lozv's nest. 




Phoebe's nest in vacant house. Two young barn swallows. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 173 

spective case designating the feathered tribe to which 
it belonged. 

In this superb museum, I found the best collection of 
birds in the country. In thus speaking I have not 
forgotten the National and Columbian or Field mu- 
seums, both of which have excellent bird exhibits. Nor 
have I failed to appreciate the value of the many small 
exhibits of birds in our capitols and state houses. 

A good museum is a wonderful place for research. 
It is a kind of reference library of prized treasures, a 
dictionary of select relics and antiquities, a catalogue 
of the world's products, and a storage place for the 
best output of men's brains. 

But the nature lover has little interest in museums ; 
his work is with living creatures and not with lifeless 
forms. You cannot know birds from visiting museums, 
and yet many a child brought up in the city has gotten 
such inspiration from seeing the mounted specimens 
that it has taken him to places where the live ones are 
found. 

I remember with exceeding joy of taking a number of 
boys and girls to a bird exhibit in a small college. 
Some of the boys knew from thirty to forty birds, but 
when they saw the mounted specimens they were 
much surprised to find how many markings they had 
never observed at all. One of them remarked that he 
had never noticed the red patch on the back of the 
flicker's neck. Another one said, "I know now how the 
swift holds himself in the chimney." Thereafter they 
were better observers and better bird students. 



174 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

What a blessed thing it is that parks afford some 
protection to bird life ! Were it not for the city park, 
many a child would never know the birds. In these 
open-air breathing places not only children but men 
and women come into some realization of the joyous 
freedom of country life. 

As early as nine o'clock on Sunday morning, July 
20th, I visited Central Park, New York. It was swarm- 
ing with people of every class and country. Every 
seat was crowded with men and women who had come 
to rest or to read. Many of them looked too tired to 
even listen to the caroling of the robins and thrushes 
in the well-kept shrubbery. I was seized with an im- 
pulse to carry them — the city-bound poor, cramped in 
their tenements — to the beautiful country where they 
might read in Nature's storybook. But for the lack 
of means many a right impulse has failed to produce 
any material good, so I left the park, its people and its 
poverty. 

I must admit to having a number of pleasurable 
hours in the Zoological Gardens at Bronx Park. Not 
more than a few rods from one of the entrances a 
wood thrush greeted me with his rapturous song. 
How he chirped and fluttered in the dark leaf masses ! 
I was glad to know that he was happy, as well as all 
others of his kind. 

Following the directions of the signboards, I came 
upon the bird house. Such noises as I heard ; chirping, 
chatting, trilling, screeching, squeaking, a confusion of 
tongues in birddom ! And yet what stories they might 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 175 

be telling each other of their native haunts; palmetto 
groves, live oaks, swampy marshes, grassy plains, mur- 
muring pines, rocky cliffs, weedy lakes, and forests, 
primeval. What an aggregation of birds ! Birds from 
almost every country on the face of the earth. Par- 
rots and cockatoos from the West Indies, gulls and 
rails from the Gulf of Mexico, terns and herons from 
Florida. Birds of brilliant plumage from tropical 
zones, birds in modest attire from temperate latitudes. 
All caged and cared for in one big open house. I 
wondered how they managed to live so happily and 
peacefully. One cage contained five different species, 
all of whom seemed in the best of spirits. I wondered, 
too, what would happen if their wire cages should be 
thrown open that they might make their escape. 
Would they return to their native haunts? Why 
should they, when they are so well cared for? I know 
of no zoological garden in the country where condi- 
tions for bird life are as ideal as they are in Bronx 
Park. Little of the artificial is to be seen. In some 
parts nature has been but slightly disturbed. The tall 
trees, the low shrubs, the thick bushes, the low gullies, 
the shallow pools of water, and the gentle undulations 
of the park are features of landscape gardening that 
birds like. 

There has been some legislation providing for the 
conservation of forests which is proving a great bless- 
ing to the country. Most of the states now have 
forest reservations, some of which contain many thou- 
sands of acres. They are of inestimable value to the 



176 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

country, not only because of their climatic influences, 
as affecting the rainfall and temperature of various 
sections but also as preservatives of the Nation's fauna 
and flora. Some states have been slow to recognize 
these values and have not as yet set aside their best 
wooded districts as parks for the people. Too often 
this hesitation has been caused by their failure to see 
any mercenary profit in such investments. The legis- 
lators, doubtless, reason that no material benefits could 
be derived from the reservations, forgetting their 
aesthetic and economic value and that instead of pro- 
viding incomes would only prove an additional ex- 
pense to the state. 

Perhaps, the natural resource legislation most 
needed today is that which will provide for the setting 
aside of wooded tracts lying near our larger towns and 
cities. Inasmuch as many towns have no parks, and 
the cities too few, this question of the people's needs 
is imperative. Large tracts of forests in possession of 
private individuals or companies should be owned and 
controlled by municipalities as parks for the people. 

These woodland places should not be robbed of their 
naturalness ; the trees should not be pruned, the birds 
killed, nor the flowers destroyed. Neither should they 
be equipped as great circus tents with all their 
menagerie. But should a park not be maintained in 
its natural state, provided with proper protection for 
the people who visit it? In such a park a city child 
could have the freedom of the out-of-doors and feel as 
little restraint as does the country boy on his father's 
farm. 



6UR DOORYARD FRIENDS 177 

A city often does not appreciate the woods within 
its limits, until after it has been destroyed. An illus- 
tration of this fact came under my recent observation, 
when a town in northern Ohio failed to purchase an 
historic tract of land lying near one of its picturesque 
streams — the Maumee. 

In this woodland, diversified with low hills, gullies, 
and ravines, there was an excellent stand of oaks, elms, 
hickories, and also a number of sassafras, poplar and 
walnut trees. The woods had been the home of more 
than fifty species of birds, and over sixty varieties of 
wild flowers had grown along the ravines and in the 
open spaces. It was private property and the owner 
had the trees felled and the timber sold, converting 
what was once a pretty woodland tract into common 
cow pasture. "What a shame !" the people said. But it 
was too late. The children had been robbed of their 
rights, the birds of their nesting sites, and the town 
of its natural charm and beauty. 



Purely insectivorous birds are worth their weight 
in gold, and bird-houses for their encouragement and 
protection, just as essential as watering places for 
live stock. 



178 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

HERE AND THERE. 

The nature lover in his rambles through the country 
is sure to see something that is a source of comfort to 
him. He is likely to find companions that prove to be 
agreeable and interesting. He may be many miles 
from home and quite alone as regards human folk, and 
yet not lonely, for every foot of earth has its story to 
tell. 

When his steps are directed toward places where he 
meets those of his own kind, he has no way of know- 
ing whether a particular personage is a member of the 
great family of Smiths or Jones, and can form no 
opinion as to their possible behavior. He can claim no 
kinship to the traveler in the park and to the man on 
the public highway. They are to him as strangers in a 
foreign land. Should he deign to speak to them, he may 
meet with a cold rebuff or a sarcastic sneer. From 
neither face nor fashion can he tell whether he will be 
received as a friend or as a foe. He may ask a simple 
question of direction and his interrogation may be 
answered with a sharp penetrating look as though he 
were an offender of the public good or a violator of the 
country's laws. 

How different it is with the creatures of nature's 
world. Once you know them, you are sure of some 
response that is pleasurable. The blue jay's squall, 
whether from the horse chestnuts in Ohio or the live 
oaks in Florida, has the same screeching sound. You 
know that he is a blue jay and you expect him to speak 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 179 

and behave as all blue jays do. When you have learned 
his characteristics, you conclude that in a measure you 
expect to find the same traits of character in all other 
members of his family. Any change in his habits or 
voice would occasion great surprise. And yet, like 
many human folks whom we think we know but do 
not, he is apt to surprise us' with some hitherto un- 
known eccentricity or peculiarity of manner or speech. 

So I was taken wholly by surprise one morning when 
from the bare red maples came a hollow-like chuckle. 
It may have been just a little undertone chat, not 
meant for a human auditor. But I would have vowed 
that it was the song of another bird had I not been 
near enough to see that no other bird was about. 

To find that the birds and flowers you have known 
at home, are found in other regions is always a source 
of abounding pleasure. The mere fact that you have 
seen that blossom elsewhere or heard the same song 
in your own door-yard creates a feeling of homeliness 
and quiet enjoyment. With what pleasure I remember 
when touring over the Briar Cliff Road in Westchester 
County, New York, the thrill of joy I felt as an indigo 
bunting broke into an ecstatic song. Above the low 
snapping of the Winton car, his voice ran sweet and 
clear. I knew that the buntings were singing at home. 
As we rolled slowly along, sparrows started from the 
bushes and once a redstart flung a flash of crimson 
into the dark woods. 

At another place, the great trees stretched their long 
branching arms high above the roadbed, making a 



180 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

magnificent archway. Under this leafy canopy we 
motored for some rods. But there was an empty still- 
ness about the place, broken only by the low hum of 
the car. Not a single bird broke the silence and 
sanctity of the majestic trees. My eyes followed the 
arched branches that formed the leafy roof between us 
and the blue sky, and I listened for some warbler's call 
note if not a song. But not a note or flutter did I hear 
till we emerged into the open again. I have wondered 
since what influences at work compelled silence in 
those tall-plumed trees on that exceedingly rare June 
morning. Perhaps, the road was too much improved, 
or maybe too many tourists disturbed the peace of the 
woodland creatures. But these are only ventures, 
doubtless on other days the trees were tenanted. 
Often local conditions may exist for which it is hard 
to account with certainty. One day a particular wood 
may be as silent as death, the next day it may be 
peopled with life flamboyant and gay. Nature has her 
moods and so have we, silent and secretive at one time, 
noisy and garrulous at another. 

When Cripple Creek is mentioned to me, I vividly 
recall the great gold-mining camp, hemmed in by the 
high hills and peaks of the Rockies ; the excursions to 
the Portland, Stratton, and Independence mines ; and 
the rather care-free, unconventional life of the people 
of this mining district. 

I remember too with joy the ride to the New Haven 
mine. How our car passed between great stone walls, 
past the rocky cliffs, climbing higher and higher till 
the track we came over lay in miniature beneath and 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 181 

beyond us. Past mines and plants we flew : Wild 
Horse Mine, Homestead Anchona, Leland, Midget, 
Moon Anchor, Gold King, C. O. D. and Cyamide — 
names suggestive of the sentiment of the prospectors. 
From the station we walked to the top of the hill. Our 
path wound around and over the gorgeously adorned 
summit covered with Colorado wild flowers. Gilia, 
beautiful masses of white and lilac-purple, swayed in 
the wind, columbines nodded a pleasant "Good morn- 
ing/' wild larkspur, blue and purple, fringed our path- 
way. Lupine, vetches, yarrow, harebells, wild sun- 
flowers, and Indian pinks proclaimed their beauty to 
the sight-seer. 

But the memory picture I like to think of most is not 
of mines nor of men, but of a thin growth of quaking 
asp on the hill near New Haven mine, where I heard 
my first pine warbler. For a moment I stood breath- 
less, fearing to move lest I should frighten away the 
singer. His whole being seemed shaken into song. 
And what a setting for the singer! The silvery white 
leaves and branches quivering in the light mountain 
breeze formed an airy stage from which he enter- 
tained his auditor. I cannot forget how wonderful he 
looked ! He had come from the pines that skirted the 
foothills, and, no doubt, was a migrant that had 
strayed farther westward than his tribe. I might 
have made his acquaintance nearer home in the pines 
of the Adirondacks, but I would have missed the 
scenic beauty of the Rockies. I shall ever be glad 
that he called me to the quaking asp on that warm 
July morning in 1903. 



182 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

FROM THE PORCH SWING. 

What joys come to one in the porch swing! Would 
that every woman who lives in the country had one ! 
For, in most of our states, the major part of the year 
is warm enough that you can sit some small part of 
the day in it and discover the sights and sounds of 
your own dooryard. The unending panorama of 
growth and beauty in nature passes before you. 
Something new, something strange, awakens your in- 
terest as each newborn day brings its mystery, its 
loveliness, its life and death. One day it is the play 
of clouds that lifts the eyes skyward. On other days 
it may be the show of colors in field and garden, or 
the white daisies starring the neglected meadow, or 
the glory of an October woodland that makes you 
realize the joys of living. 

You are indeed fortunate if your porch is so ideal 
in its exposure that from it you may see the woods 
and fields at close range. It is worth while to have 
the trees so near your piazza that you can hear the 
bird calls and watch the flickers slip in and out of 
their dark tree-trunk tunnels. And yet, many people 
are blessed with just such an outdoor watch tower 
without ever looking for the signals nature puts out. 

May 24th. 

The towhee buntings and tufted titmice are singing. 
The rains and high temperature of preceding days have 
worked wonders with the growing things. The air is 
so hot and humid that one experiences a feeling like 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 1&3 

that of being steeped in tropical vapor. Life and 
growth are continuously making such marvelous 
transformations that expectancy is lost in mystery. 
The catbird's nest of yesterday held three greenish 
blue eggs. Today, we find in it three little fuzzy, 
squirmy fledglings. The robin's nest above the door 
is empty. The young ones left this morning for the 
woods across the road. I hear their chirping notes. 
Chipping sparrows are now busy bringing food to their 
nestlings in the cedar tree but a few feet away. I love 
to see their trim little bodies hop over the lawn, halt- 
ing now and then to pick up some bit of food. 

What song is that which comes from the blue 
cedar? The singer is quite lost to view. There now, 
he flies to the fence and in this exposed position, I can 
see how closely the color of his little drab body 
harmonizes with the lilac grays of the weathered post. 
But his song, the mating song, what an appeal it is to 
her in the near-by tree. A succession of call notes, a 
few notes much like the chickadee's "de, de, de," a 
sweet trill gently uttered completes the repertoire. 
Once, twice, thrice he sings it through. It is the blue- 
gray gnatcatcher's message to his mate and her world. 
Doubt you that she is listening? If w r e sing our own 
song, speak our own message, will we not always find 
a listener? Is there not a response to every song that 
is one's own? 

June 22nd — Morning. 

How much one misses if he does not see the sun 
rise or set at least once a month. This is the longest 



184 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

day of the year and I mean to make the most of it by 
thus rising before sun-up. It is but 4:30 and already 
the illumination has begun in the east. The soft blue- 
gray masses piled to mid-heaven are silently dissolving 
into great stretches of filmy whiteness. Below 
the rifted grays appear mild yellows, tender green, 
subdued violet and lavender. The gray curtain 
becomes more translucent. Light breaks through the 
soft, filmy veil of vapor, filling the eastern sky with 
wonderful beauty. The display continues. Clouds of 
spotless white like piles of fleecy wool, are scattered 
as sheep lost from the parent flock. In an hour, a 
decided transformation is wrought. In the north, the 
sky is as a billowy sea. Great blue vapory waves 
crested with whitecaps are slowly rolling southward 
where clouds are awaiting the orders for change. 

Evening. 

Nor is the illumination less beautiful this evening. 
The setting sun is flashing its lights in the western 
sky with such beauty and brilliancy that one is "dis- 
turbed with the presence of elevated thoughts. " Above 
the dark green wall of the forest, the west is a rich 
rose into which is slowly slipping the big round, red 
sun ; above the rose zone other reflections of equal 
beauty — golden yellow, green, blue and lavender — are 
seen. 

A constant transformation is going on. Every 
minute the sky reflects new beauty in various tints and 
shades of color which are so harmoniously blended 
that the eye cannot tell where the one begins or the 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 185 

other ends. This transformation is so silent, so grad- 
ual, so diffused that the inward eye, conscious of ever- 
changing beauty, knows not how nor when it is 
wrought. 

As the broad, red sun slowly sinks from view be- 
hind the shadowed tapestry of the woods more beauty 
glorifies the heavens. The skyline becomes an irreg- 
ular blackened wall against a background of orange 
cadmium. Deep vermilion, pale green, quiet blues and 
grays reach up to the blue of mid-heaven. Then again, 
instantaneously, on this suffused color shower, the 
great sun turns its yellow lights, illumining the perfect 
whole with ineffable beauty — love — God. 
August 29th. 

Today the woods give one a feeling for Corot. A 
slight grayness has crept into the foliage. The oaks 
are a duller blue-green than a month ago and the 
hickories are beginning to show their first touches of 
autumn coloring. A cool northwest wind has been 
whistling through an atmosphere soft and dreamy, 
urging into motion the silvery-green masses with their 
dry, upturned leaves. Almost mysteriously the wood- 
land has taken on an aspect, light and feathery. 

Little color, except green, is to be seen but hints 
of it lurk low in the meadows and overgrown pastures. 
The lower wild strawberry leaves are orange-red, the 
white oak shrubs show crimson galls, and on the long- 
trailing grasses is the bright scarlet fruit of the red 
haws. But the landscape as a whole is toned down 
and has lost much of the luxuriant greenness of mid- 



186 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

summer. A month ago a deciduous woodland would 
have been the study of an Inness, distinctly American, 
but today it has a strange, foreign aspect — dry, dull, 
dreamy. 

When the hickories begin to turn, the wild cherries 
are ripe. Their rich blue-black color attracts both man 
and bird. The fruit has a bitter tang, which makes it 
all the more palatable to those who like the wild, racy 
flavors found in the untamed fruits of woods and fields. 
In my love for the wild fruit, I shall -remain a child 
always. Nothing gives me greater joy than to get 
down on the ground in the fence-rows and search for 
the wild strawberries, or to wander out to the tangled 
blackberry patch and reap the harvest of fruit and 
brambles ; or to tramp along a deserted country road 
in autumn and glean the purple grapes from the vines 
that clothe the fence with such riotous beauty. I can 
think of no happiness that comes to me so unculti- 
vated, unalloyed, and so unadulterated as that which 
comes with the experience of finding new beauty in 
the familiar out-of-doors. 

I have always admired the delicate, flesh tints in the 
ripening leaves of the wild plum, maple, sumac, and 
woodbine, but this admiration has grown in intensity 
since I heard the guide's story in the New York Art 
museum of the making of the peach bloom vases. The 
potter who shaped these rare vases spent a lifetime in 
toil and experiment before he discovered the process 
that produced the wonderful lustre and color found in 
these exquisite pieces of pottery. To the touch they 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 



187 



are as hard as flint and yet to the eye they give that 
luscious rosiness and softness that you see in the blos- 
soms and ripe fruit of the peach. So perfect are these 
art creations that they have baffled the skill of the best 
imitators. No reproductions have been made that can 
approach such effects in color and tone. Nature in 
one day with soil, and sun, and sea works out a bit of 
harmony — while man may spend a century in creating 
the beauty he sees therein. 




RED- WINGED BLACKBIRD 



188 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

WHEN THE ICE IS ON THE TREES. 

Not often do we step from the warm hearth-fires of 
our homes into the out-of-doors and find that the little 
sphere in which we move has been transformed into 
a world of ice. But such was the case January 26, 1913. 
All through the night before, the clouds had slowly 
sifted their chilling mist which froze as it fell. Walks, 
streets, footpaths were glazed with an icy coating clear, 
smooth, and shining. On this sleek surface people trod 
carefully, always with their eyes fixed upon the crystal 
world in which they were moving, for under the ice- 
coating, probably seven-eights inches in thickness, even 
the most familiar things looked strange and staring. 
"How beautiful it is !" were the words on the lips of 
every passer-by. 

In the sunshine, the valley looked as if Tiffany were 
exhibiting a display of cut glass, gems, and jewels. 
Look where you would, beauty of design and color 
met your eyes. There you saw the glitter of a diamond, 
here the ice crystals reflected the beauty of an 
amethyst, an emerald, a sapphire. In the shadows it 
was as if some god of the frozen world had by some 
magic power suddenly transformed the landscape into 
an icy fairyland. Fire would have destroyed the land- 
scape, blackened and consumed it. Wind would have 
torn its way through the woodlands, filling the air with 
a confusion of flying things. Water would have 
washed, clayed, and sanded, taking away here and 
building up there — paying toll for its liberty in de- 





Again the woodland had been transformed into a Crystal World. 




The willows bowed, bent and broken. 




Two active members of The Liberty Bell Bird Club. 

From feeding the chickens to feeding the birds 

is only a step. 



THE FIRST LESSON 




A Food Shelter in operation; snozv 
12 inches deep. 



OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 189 

posits of earthy sediments. But the ice god — slow, 
silent, scintillating — in the blackness of one night had 
congealed the tears of heaven — and we saw a crystal 
world. 

Along the river whose usually swift current was 
held fast by its thick ice coat, the willows stood, bowed, 
bent, and broken. From a distance they looked like 
frozen surf and seaweed cast upon a storm-beaten 
coast. All was quiet there, save the faint clicking of 
the icy withes as they beat upon each other with the 
motion of the wind. No comfort there now for the 
tree sparrows who on other days loved to sit in the 
swinging willows and bask in the sunshine. The cock- 
spur thorn, so perfectly crystalled, looked as if it had 
been shot from the glass blower's tubes. Twigs and 
spines had lost their sharpness under the thick masque 
of ice that covered them. Would the catbird, could 
she have seen it, recognized her old nesting tree now 
glittering and glinting with pendant icicles? The 
heavy icy cylinders formed over the twigs and 
branches of the oaks, elms, and maples gave them a 
wonderful bearing. In these armors of ice their 
weighted heads drooping low, looked strangely un- 
natural. When the sun broke through the grayness 
of the morning, the delicate gradations of color re- 
flected from the icy surface produced the most subtle 
and superb harmonies. It was easy to imagine fab- 
ulous tales of folks painting ice-scapes of a crystal 
world. 

While in the realm of beauty, we little think of 



190 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

distress, not till we experience it are we awake to a 
sense of our unfortunate surroundings. Throughout 
the ice-bound region electric wires lay upon the earth, 
trains slacked their speed and lost time. Traffic was 
delayed and many discomforts came to those who 
depended upon scheduled deliveries. But these in- 
conveniences were but for the day, for by the stren- 
uous efforts of the working-world, human wants and 
necessities were soon supplied. But the bird residents 
which peopled the fields and open woods did not fare 
so well. The heavy sheathing of ice which wrapped 
every weed head, every bole and branch of bush and 
tree, cut off the food supply of the seed-eating species. 
Pretty and picturesque as the icescape was to human 
folk, it meant death and destruction to many of the 
feathered tribe. To live in such a chilly environment 
was enough to congeal the blood in the heart of the 
warmest creature but it was not the low temperature 
that was causing distress among the birds — they were 
short of rations and some were starving. For not 
until the close of the third day was the ice coating 
sufficiently removed to make food-getting possible. 
Finches, and song and tree sparrows probably suffered 
most for they were largely dependent for their food 
upon the weed seeds in old pastures and meadows. 
Blue jays and woodpeckers often chiseled and ham- 
mered through the ice in search of the embedded 
morsels. Nuthatches, chickadees, and titmice, w r ere 
driven to the dooryards, hoping to find something 
there to appease their hunger. Notwithstanding the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 191 

food sent out to the many feeding stations, many birds 
were not reached and went supperless to bed those 
January nights. The sight of a philanthropist feeding 
a multitude of hungry children creates in us feelings, 
humane and sympathetic. Do we not find a parallel 
scene in the ten-year-old lad, out in the open common, 
feeding a flock of starving birds? 



If you will protect the birds in the winter, they 
will protect you during the summer when the fly and 
mosquito are spreading disease and death, that's 
when the birds are busiest. 



192 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 




Mrs. American Barn Owl is quite content with her 
homely name, satisfying her artistic nature with a har- 
monious costume of buff, overlaid with grayish, spotted 
with white and dotted with black. She is the radical 
leader of all progressive movements among her sisters, 
refuses to make a nest and goes out at night unaccom- 
panied. She maintains her independent economic status 
in the civic plan of the bird Republic by ridding the 
community of meadow-mice, rats, beetles, shrews, 
gophers and other undesirable settlers in the fields. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 193 



The Practical Side of Bird Life 

By Fred High 

This is a practical age and the question that natural- 
ly comes to our mind is, Does it pay? Why all this 
fuss about birds? Wouldn't it be time more profitably 
spent if we were to study how to better serve human- 
ity? 

The author has shown how the birds are man's un- 
tiring employees as well as being counted among his 
true friends and unsurpassed entertainers. The farm, 
the orchard, and the garden are their habitat. Their 
speech is a song. 

Let's take a single case as an example. According 
to the Government reports the American sparrow 
family, in 1910, saved the sum of $89,260,000 to the 
farmers in consuming weed seeds that cause such 
losses as the above figures show. 72,000 weed seeds 
have been found in the stomach of a single duck, 
which proves that a duck hunter is one of the enemies 
of humanity. 

A few years ago the American hen was looked upon 
as a sort of consort for the farmer's wife. Eggs fur- 
nished the pin money for the women folk. But today 
the chicken business totals more than $650,000,000 for 
meat and eggs, to say nothing of the by-products of 
feathers. 



194 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

We have fought a fierce political battle on the prob- 
lem of gold and yet that year there were $40,000,000 
less gold produced than involved in the poultry bus- 
iness. 

Eggs have gone up from two cents for a baker's 
dozen of thirteen to $1.00 for twelve. The latter price is 
often paid for specially selected eggs for high class 
hotel, restaurant, and drug store trade, and $50 a dozen 
for eggs for setting purposes is not unusual, while a 
single hen is worth as much as a farm in Texas and a 
married one, together with her family, often costs 
more than a city residence. Samona County, Cali- 
fornia, alone has produced more than 10,000,000 dozen 
eggs in one year. 

Hens lay for us but we have to provide feed for 
them, house them and care for them as though they 
were prima donnas, for chickens and Grand Opera 
Singers are equally sensitive to the gentlest zephyrs, 
and both are temperamental. 

Birds work for us so faithfully that every time a 
hen cackles or a rooster crows over the fact that they 
annually add $650,000,000 to our wealth, the little birds 
snicker tee-he and sing of their glorious work, accom- 
panied by nature's symphony orchestra, for they have 
saved us $1,000,000,000 and cost us little effort and 
less money for feed and shelter. 

Chicken shows are more numerous and more profit- 
able than a circus. Why not have a bird show? We 
have our Arbor Day to plant trees, now what is needed 
is to make April 9th our national bird day. 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 195 

Bird farming is one of the great industries of the 
future. Just as fox farming has produced $16,000,000 
profit in the last couple of years, so will the wild birds 
prove veritable Klondykes to the wise men of the near 
future. 

As the new practice of medicine is based upon pre- 
vention rather than cure — the bird life of our com- 
munity ought to be studied with care for here are to 
be found the natural enemies of many disease bearing 
insects. "Even the Night Hawks," says the Philadel- 
phia Farm Journal, "are great sportsmen and are such 
expert aeronauts that no winged insect is safe from 
them. They contribute greatly to the healthfulness of 
the section where they live, by disposing, in a most 
effective and hygienic manner, of several species of 
mosquitoes, among them, the Anopheles, the transmit- 
ters of malaria. Night Hawks belong to the Whip- 
poorwill family, and subsist entirely upon winged 
insects which they capture while gracefully sailing 
around at eventide." 

Dr. Edward Amherst Ott, in his war on poverty, 
has been figuring at the loss caused by rats and the 
last heard from him his figures were so high that they 
looked almost as though some enthusiastic Prohibi- 
tionist had figured out the cost of booze, and yet the 
common Barn Owl lives on rats, mice, beetles, shrews, 
gophers and other undesirable squatters in the fields 
that are intended for corn, wheat, oats and other food 
grain. So Owl farms are not an iridescent dream. 

The National Association of Audubon Societies is 



196 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

doing a wonderful work in the field of research and 
gathering the facts, classifying them, and from this 
mass there is coming into use several new sciences, 
much useful, practical knowledge, and a greater love 
for nature. Its National headquarters are at 1974 
Broadway, New York, and a card to that address will 
bring much valuable information about this movement. 
The colored illustrations used in this volume were 
furnished by The National Audubon Society. 

On January 1, 1913, Mr. Wilmer Atkinson, Editor 
of the Farm Journal of Philadelphia, organized the 
Liberty Bell Bird Club with one member. On Febru- 
ary 1, 1915, the club had 300,000 members. Its sole 
object is to save the song and insectivorous birds, and 
it asks the co-operation of every bird lover. 

The need of such a club is readily seen when the 
government reports are studied and we find that ninety 
pei cent of the bird life in this country has been 
destroyed, and that $1,000,000,000 a year is lost by the 
farmers and fruit growers by the ravages of insects. 

We read with ever refreshing interest the story of 
the plagues of Egypt that Pharoah encountered thou- 
sands of years ago, quite forgetful of the fact that in 
one year the birds of Massachusetts alone consumed 
21,000 bushels of insects. 

The Liberty Bell Bird Club has brought the battle 
for birds before about 4,000 county superintendents of 
schools, 125,000 teachers, and has introduced bird study 
into more than 7,000 schools. There are no dues, no 
assessments, no fines, no fees, no expense of any kind, 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 197 

all that is asked is valiant service for the birds. Both 
the author and the publisher of this book are members 
and are glad to help along the good work that is being 
done by this splendid organization. 

Can we bring back the birds? The Saturday Eve- 
ning Post some time ago devoted a half page to that 
very subject, describing how J. Warren Jacobs of 
Waynesburg, Pa., conceived the notion that even de- 
parted birds would "come back" to their old haunts, in 
spite of steam whistles, quarry blasts and the general 
racket of forge and factory if given an intelligent 
welcome, so in 1896 he built a bird house, designed with 
a view of attracting martins. This mansion contained 
twenty rooms and great was his delight when he dis- 
covered an old scout flying around on an investigation 
tour, and as he saw "to let" on every side, he was not 
long in deciding to move in. He hastened away to lead 
his good mate to their new home. The next day Mrs. 
Martin inspected every room in the house while Mr. 
Martin sat on the chimney of his new home looking 
for neighbors ; and in less than a week there were eight 
couples in Jacobsville, as the martins call it. At that 
time there were less than two dozen martins in 
Waynesburg. Last year 1,200 of them left there about 
the 28th of August for their flight south to the West 
Indies, Central and South America. 

On September 17, 1908, 25,000 of these real aviators 
were gathered from all parts of Pennsylvania, West 
Virginia, Ohio, and states still farther north and they 
halted for the night at New Martinsville, W. Va., an 



198 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

Ohio river town about forty miles south of Wheeling, 
which, if it wasn't named in their honor deserved to 
be, at any rate they took the city. They had gathered 
for their flight south. 

The martin is the friend of man as man is the friend 
of the martin. The noble Redman of the forest was 
the first to build a rude house for him and it was he 
who started the evolution that has changed the mar- 
tin's home from a hollow tree to a house built after all 
the modern plans of architecture. 

The pictures of the Jacob's Martin House are worth 
studying. That prince of men, philanthropist and 
friend of the race at Detroit, Michigan, who tied a 
string to an old tin can, called it a Ford and away it 
ran, has ordered a dozen of these bird mansions for his 
home and factories. He knows the pLeasure that the 
Purple Martin brings to those who watch its busy life. 
Wm. Rockefeller has six of them at his Bay Pond, 
N. Y., home. Mrs. Potter Palmer has one in Florida 
where she migrates during the cold weather. Two 
thousand others have these bird mansions on their pri- 
vate property. City parks and public places are dotted 
with them. They are shipped to all parts of this coun- 
try. Russia, before the days when men set out to kill 
each other and wipe the human race off the map, was 
a constant buyer of Purple Martin Mansions. 

Mr. Jacobs has a bird house factory — his business is 
a profitable one. It is only in its infancy. There is a 
great future for the manufacturer of bird houses as a 
business. 



OUR DOOkYARD FRIENDS 199 

Mr. Jacobs says : "The Purple Martin is today at 
the threshold of a stimulating and prosperous advance, 
which during the next few years will spread its progeny 
over territory where it has not been seen for years. A 
large amount of correspondence during the past few 
years shows a widespread desire and longing to re- 
establish the martin in communities from which the 
birds long ago departed. " 

In Illinois we have a state law that compels the 
teaching of kindness to birds and animals in our pub- 
lic schools. We see the value of teaching the young 
that we are past the age of barbarity and that we have 
learned a part of our lesson from the story of the 
buffalo. 

When a man with as many diversified interests as 
those which daily confront Henry Ford, the much 
written about automobile builder, can take time from 
his many activities to give his personal attention to the 
better protection of song and insectiverous birds, it is 
time for most of us to give thought to this great eco- 
nomic problem. 

Mr. Ford has a farm of four thousand acres that .is 
situated at Dearborn, Michigan — about ten miles from 
Detroit. The Rogue River flows through it, and Mr. 
Ford has had it damned to make a wider series of 
drinking places for the birds. He has placed about 
five hundred bird houses in this bird haven, and he 
finds no trouble in keeping his houses occupied. 

He has many houses and feeeding stations arranged, 
and the thick undergrowth, and the big roots from 



200 OUR DOORY ARD FRIENDS 

fallen trees, are all good shelters, but especially fine is 
an arrangement of rails and cornstalks. Fence-rails, 
some distance apart, are laid on the ground, then a 
layer crosswise, and so on until a series of five or six 
rows is made. Around and on top of these rails are 
placed corn-stalks until the rails are entirely covered. 
A better shelter can hardly be made. The birds work 
in through the stalks, and there is always plenty of dry 
and warm spaces between the rails. The water cannot 
get through and food is thrown between the rails. 
Hundreds of birds use these throughout the winter. 
In the spring the shelters are burned and new ones are 
built in the fall. These corn-stalk shelters are from 
ten to thirty feet long. 

It is a great sight to see the motor cars leaving 
Detroit for the Ford Farm, loaded with food for the 
birds, and to follow them to the places where this food 
is placed so his little feathered friends can banquet on 
grain, seeds, suet, doughnuts, and hot cakes, and to 
hear their little twitter of delight and songs of thank- 
ful praise for these favors. 

Their menu reads like this : rolled oats, cracked 
wheat or cracked corn; hemp, millet, or sunflower 
seeds. Flapjacks are hung on the trees; doughnuts 
are put where they can be easily found to finish up a 
short order lunch. Suet is provided in big quantities, 
and is placed in wire cages so it cannot be carried away 
in large pieces. The grains are placed on the trays in 
the feeding stations, in boxes, thrown under the corn- 
stalk shelters and, for shy birds, scattered on the 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 201 

ground under the feeding houses. The feeding is 
done daily and the birds visit the stations in flocks and 
eat up the supply clean. 

A daily report shows the feeding stations were 
visited by 100 myrtle warblers, 110 song sparrows, 150 
juncos, 41 white-throated and white-crowned spar- 
rows, 98 tree sparrows, 204 goldfinches; also many 
white-breasted nut-hatches, downy woodpeckers, 
robins, and larks. Many other varieties are expected 
to stay there this coming winter. 

Thousands of wild berry plants have been set out 
for the birds and, for the ducks and shore birds, wild 
rice has been planted in the swamps. Many of these, 
like the mergansers, stay all winter. 

Water is provided in winter. Mr. Ford has built a 
box with an electric heater which keeps the water 
tepid. No bird suffers from thirst on the Ford Farm. 

The fifteen or more feeding stations are all securely 
built. The trays are at the top so that the birds can eat 
in comfort. The rain and snow cannot reach the feed. 

The Ford Farm is not a show-place. There is not 
a caged bird on the farm. The farm is for the birds 
and every effort is made to make it an ideal breeding 
place for them. 

The birds have become very tame and some are ab- 
solutely fearless. The wrens and woodpeckers build 
right up to Mr. Ford's bungalow, and in a strip of 
ground 30x200 feet near the bungalow, twenty-three 
nests were found of fifteen varieties of birds. 

All the native birds of Michigan are on the farm, and 



202 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

many others. Prairie chickens, quails and pheasants 
are there and rapidly multiplying. 

If you are interested in this story of Henry Ford's 
bird farm, send a postcard to the Ford Automobile 
Factory at Detroit and ask for the literature that this 
great hearted humanitarian has gathered, and he will 
mail it to you free of charge. I know, for I tried it. 

So important are the birds, that the Agricultural 
Department of our National Government has lead in 
the research work that has Avrought such wonders in 
recent years. The scientific information that is the 
basis of our bird knowledge, is largely due to the fos- 
tering care given to this great movement by those in 
authority. 

The department has issued many valuable and prac- 
ticable booklets, pamphlets, and bulletins that are ac- 
complishing wonderful results. The general diffusion 
of practical ways of protecting the song and insectiver- 
ous birds is already felt as an economic factor. 

The pen sketches used in this book were made for 
use in the Government campaign to educate the people 
to a better appreciation of the value of the common 
birds to society. 

The department has just completed the 1915 bird 
census, the most complete ever taken. It shows that 
the robin heads the list as the most numerous bird in 
America, with the English sparrow as second. In the 
northwestern states there are an average of six pairs 
of robins for each farm of fifty-eight acres. 

On each acre of farmland covered by the census 



OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 203 

there was an average of one pair of birds. The record 
of density came from Chevy Chase, Md., a suburb of 
the national capital, where 161 pairs were found nest- 
ing on 23 acres. Thirty-four species of birds were rep- 
resented. 

The present bird population, it is pointed out, is 
much smaller than it ought to be, having in mind the 
fact that birds feed largely on insects. It would be a 
very easy matter to increase the number of birds to 
almost any desired figure, by more protection and bet- 
ter care. 

"It is an interesting fact disclosed by the govern- 
ment census," says the Christian Science Monitor, 
"that breeding birds prefer thickly inhabited centers 
of population to forests. This gives mankind a larger 
responsibility for the preservation of bird life than 
it was supposed to have before. In other words, the 
census shows that the widespread belief that the hu- 
man family and birds are in any sense antagonistic 
is not true." 

The department has issued a bulletin that is ready 
for distribution announcing the result of the census 
of 1915 that is very interesting. 

Cities maintain Zoos at great expense for they are 
great educators and humanizers. The crowds that 
flock to them are all made better by a greater knowl- 
edge of the animals that are about us. 

We are coming more and more to appreciate the 
truth of the philosophy in that great book of Sir Edwin 
Arnold, "The Light of Asia," where Gautama asks the 



204 OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS 

shepherd driving his flock to the temple to be slain as a 
sacrifice : "How can you expect mercy from the God 
above when you show none to the creatures beneath 
you?" 

Our humane societies are aimed at the abuse oi 
animals — they are great organizations, they do great 
work — they are humanizing the human race for no man 
can love his wife who is cruel to his horse, and if he is 
brutal to his dog, it's a sure thing that his children 
know not the warmth of the tender heart of real love. 

The way to prevent cruelty is to teach the beauty 
of love and the power of kindness. An anti-cruelty so- 
ciety is a first step and a necessary one, but for perma- 
nent results we must circulate just such little eye-open- 
ers as this little book with its philosophy which might 
be termed the gospel of the larger love that was im- 
plied in the command of Jesus when He said: "Go ye 
into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
creature." 

There is only one gospel that every creature can un- 
derstand, and that is the gospel of love. 



